Blog Post Awards 2026

We welcome nominations for what you think were the best of the best (best title? best rant? best line? best post? best blog?) either in a particular week or throughout the semester... Self-nominations also welcome.

• Award for Being First: Dave, for Introduction
• Cutting it Fine Award: Shreya, for Introduction, at 11:58pm and 19 seconds.
• Most Amazing and Coolest Images Award: Nana, for Nana's Introduction ;D
• Cutest Image of Blogger as Small Child with Sibling Making Faces On What Looks to be Some Kind of Fairground Ride Award: Julya, for Why hello there stranger

• Best Title: Shreya, for “go upstairs”- someone needs to chin his parents.hey mom, maybe let the boy have his goodnight kisses yeah?
• Most Proustian Post on Proust: Melissa, for proustian rant on proust
• Cutting it Fine Award: Kim, for La Rue De Boring – Proust, at 11:58pm.
• Best Question(s): Jasmine, with "Does documenting a moment right away make it less likely to come back in that sudden, emotional way later?" at Proust

• Award for Being First: Jennifer, for A Whole Day of Arlt
• Best One-Sentence Summary of One of the Main Themes of the Book Award: Zara, for "One thing that Arlt did exceptionally well is demonstrate how a person is a product of their environment, but only to an extent." From Mad Toy, a well executed coming of age story?.
• Philosophical Point to Ponder Award: Julya, for "We always think adult life is all daisies and roses, and then we get our metaphorical asses handed to us, and we get reality checked to the next plane of existence, so that we can get up and learn to be okay with the fact that life does suck sometimes, but you have to try to make the best of it." Also wins the Proof that Not Only Proust Writes Long Sentences Award. From What did the “coming-of-age story” genre do to Robert Arlt that made him come out swinging like that?! and what is this arsonist child doing here?!!.
• Best Use of Quotation to Provide Textual Examples Award: Kim, for stay away from state-run “hotels” – Arlt

• Award for Being First: Gurman, for A Maddening Infatuation— "Nadja" by André Breton
• Can She Really Keep Up This Plan to Write Every Blog Post in the Style of the Book She's Reading? Award: Melissa, for NEBULOSITY
• Best Rant: Kimberly, for Nadja: Pretentious Bland French Man x Manic Pixie Dream Girl
• Best Title: Ava, for Andre, hun, with all the love in the world, have you considered therapy?

• Award for Being First: Anora, for Ontological Fiction in Maria Luisa Bombal
• Controversial Opinion Award: Dave, for Another rich kid’s boring selfish wasted life
• Best Use of Quotation to Provide Textual Examples Award: Radha, for Revelations after death – The Shrouded Woman
• Best Post: Tolu, for Who’s the fairest of them all?

• Best Post: Sophia, for Evil under the sun
• Improving Your Reading Attention Span Award: Justin, for Feeling stuck 🙁
• Best Rant: Zara, for and the Grammy goes to … Agostino for the most Freudian MC!
• Title Made Me Laugh Award: Quizzy, for Freud has this RMST course in a chokehold. (Also a contender for this week's Best Use of Quotation to Provide Textual Examples Award.)
• Would Definitely Have Won Several Awards if Only She'd Got Her Blog Post In a Bit Earlier Award: Julya, for “We shouldn’t be fucking MILFs, it ruined my life”- a MILF’s son’s memoir

• Best Use of Alliteration: Keshia, for This House Has Mold, Memories, and Malice. (But wouldn't it have been nice if it had been a Melancholy Mansion Made of Mold, Memories, and Malice??) Plus the opening line made me laugh: "Reading Nada felt less like reading a novel and more like being dropped into someone else’s extremely tense family group chat."
• Best Post: Muhtadi, for The Quiet Weight of Survival
• Best Line: Kavya, for "memory gives shape to what felt meaningless at the time. The year only gains significance through retrospection." From A book about nothing (that somehow meant a lot).
• Cutting it Fine and Making the TAs Lose Their Beauty Sleep Award: Por, for AH, HOW STUPID YOUTH IS! - NADA, at 11:58pm

• Best Use of Quotation to Provide Textual Examples Award: Kim, for I can’t think of a serious title…where is Carmen with a fun story when you need him??. Kim is now a multiple award-winner in this category!
• Posting While Cranky Award: Ava, for "Those goddamn kids. Oh my god. They were all awful and frankly deserved worse punishments than they got." From Man, it really was those goddamn meddling kids – Black Shack Alley.
• I Still Don't Really Understand Her Emojis, But I Like Them Award: Julie, for Zobel – undying sacrifice, all for education
• Cutting it Fine and Making the TAs Lose Their Beauty Sleep Award: Shreya, for black shack alley, at 11:59pm. Shreya is now a multiple award-winner in this category!

• Award for Being First: Melissa, for Review of Deep Rivers
• Best Photo of Blog Author Reading the Book Award: Dave, for The likeable rich white Indian fake rebel
• Best Post: Keshia, for When Rocks Have Beef and Bells Are Emotionally Unstable: Surviving Deep Rivers
• Best Line Award: Gonii, for "His hatred isn’t political yet — it’s instinctive. It’s the kind of reaction you have before you learn the words for colonialism or state violence, when you just know something is wrong in your body before you can explain it out loud." From Between Two Rivers: Belonging and Obligation in Deep Rivers.

• Best Use of Quotation to Provide Textual Examples Award. Jointly awarded to Cat, for Time of the Doves, to Jennifer, for The Time of the Doves – A Turn of Events, and to Xavier, for The Birds in The Time of the Doves.
• Best Diss of Quimet: Gurman, for "Quimet can smd and rot in hell :)." From Dearest Colometa— "Time of the Doves" by Mercè Rodoreda. Honourable mention to Nana, for "fuck you Quimet." From Quimet dies, who else cheered?.
• Best Posts: Gonii, for Shrinking and Breathing, and Sofia, for The Time of the Doves (And…)
• Best Title: Tripti, for Little Dove? Nah, She a Warrior

• Best Use of Quotation to Provide Textual Examples Award. Jointly awarded to Zara, for The Hour of Questions, and to Quizzy, for another shitty arrogant man (explosion).
• Award for Self-Reflection: Josh, for Macabea is the being without becoming
• Best Rant: Ava, for RIP Macabea, you will not be missed in the slightest
• Best Post: Kimberly, for To be loved is to be known…?

• Award for Self-Reflection: Xavier, for Book 7: Reading “If on a winter’s night a traveler”… Again
• Most Calvinoesque Post on Calvino Award: Gurman, for The Title is Covered by Steam and Smoke From the Locomotive, Deal With it or Cry— "If on a Winter's Night a Traveler" by Italo Calvino. Also the Made Me Laugh Award, for “everybody shut up, I am trying to read Gurman’s blog!”
• Best Use of Emoji Award: Nana, for fool me once, shame on me, fool me 5 times, also shame on me (also a contender for Best Title Award!)
• Best Post: Emilia, for Romanticizing reading

• Best Post: Gonii, for Family Might be the Problem Here. Gonii is now a multiple award-winner in this category!
• Best Title: Neil, for RMST is doomed to never get a couple of lovebirds we can actually feel good about
• Thoughtful Choice of Images Award: Sydney, for THE LOVER BY DURAS: NAIVETY OF THE ADOLESCENT MIND, as well as all the weekly images featured on SYDNEY'S BLOG.
• Thoughtful Choice of Music Award: Matteya, for The Lover, as well as all the weekly music featured on RMST 202 blog.

• Best Post: Palak, for Trenchcoat. Honourable mention to Laura, for maybe my favourite so far: the trenchcoat.
• Best Discussion of the Text's Relevance to the Present Day Award: Logan, for The government is in your walls. The government is in your walls. The government is in your walls. The government is in your walls.
• Best Use of Quotation to Provide Textual Examples Award: Anora, for Politics & Paranoia: Norman Manea's The Trenchcoat. Honourable mention to Radha, for The Trenchcoat – Manea.
• Best Dogged Pursuit of a Single Theme Award: Xavier, for Book 8: Names in “The Trenchcoat

• Best Title: Keshia, for This Is the Worst Group Project I’ve Ever Seen
• Best Posts: Laura, for piglia, Gurman, for Violence, Madness, and Queer Desire— "Money to Burn" by Ricardo Piglia, and Fiona, for Thoughts on Money to Burn. With four awards to date, Gurman now heads the award table.
• Best Tags: Cat, for "Bad people, Betrayal, Mixed feelings." From Money to Burn
• Best at Making Connections to Other Texts We've Read Award: Kimpreet, for mo money mo problems. Also a strong contender for Made Me Laugh Award, for the meme she included. With four awards to date, Kimpreet now draws level with Gurman at the top of the award table.

(Note that if you publish your blog post after 11pm on the Sunday, by then I may well already have given out all the awards for the week! Otherwise, for instance, Alivia might have won an award for the line "I think at that point I have reached a new conclusion, and it is that almost all the authors of the books I’ve read in this course so far has some sort of serious problem", as might have Julya for "As a Brasilian, it is also my duty to shit on Argentinians at any given point in time because Brasil is just better".)

• Best Use of Quotation to Provide Textual Examples Award: Miranda, for salami, and June, for Forest Friends in the Cottage
  
• Best Account of Synchronicity and Connection to Other Texts Award: Anora, for Javier Cercas' Soldiers of Salamis: A triptych of Auto Fiction, Writing and Memory
• Best Post: Muhtadi, for Who gets to be remembered?
• Best Question: Xavier, for "What are the “gods”, and what is the “stuff of life” in reference to this story?" In Book 10: Writing Heroes in “The Soldiers of Salamis”. With four awards to date, Xavier now joins Melissa, Kimpreet, and Gurman at the top of the award table.

• Best Post (and She Finally Got Her Blog in Early Enough to Win an Award Award): Julya, for Why be a fly on the wall when you can be an osga (Eulálio eu te amo <33). (Also not sure if Julya should get an award for nationalism: "My country is so awesome, I love being Brasilian." But then we'd have to give this award to 213 million Brazilians...)
• Most Poetic Title Award: Melissa, for Stars in a black river flowing tear-like across the immensely lonely regions of the world. With four awards to date, Melissa now joins Kimpreet and Gurman at the top of the award table.
• Best Connection to Reading for Another Course Award: Olivia, on Baudrillard, in 2 truths and 1 lie
• Best Title: Maysen, for did you know? rewriting your past could save you 15% or more on car insurance (as recommended by Melissa)

• Best Use of Quotation to Provide Textual Examples Award: Sarah, for You take the man out of the city, not the city out the man – Joe Keery
• Best Line: Tyler, for "I also learned that writing itself is not always complete, as the authors style of writing which is sort of fragmented forces us to piece together meaning like how we try to understand and make sense of the world or our lives." From Faces in the Crowd.
• Best Posts: Nerissa, for forgettable faces in the crowd, and Tolu, for Everything Everywhere All at Once
• Made Me Laugh Award: Marianah, for the title of her post, I wanna own a red coat

• Most Liberal Use of Exclamation Marks Award: Doris, with five, in Growing up and dissolving
• Best Post: Dave, for women's friendships 101. With four awards to date, Dave now joins Melissa, Kimpreet, and Gurman at the top of the award table
• Best Hashtag (Though Shouldn't It Have Been A Tag?) Award: Kimberly, for #toxicyuri (yes, I had to google it). From Ferrante: Pitting two queens against each other.
• Best Thought on Dissolving Margins Award: Miyaki, for "Seeing the outlines of people melt, seeing human beings as poorly-made monsters of bone and blood. I dont know how she had that feeling. Maybe she saw all the violence in the neighborhood, firework, gunshot, blood. Then the human nature of being animal was revealed in front of her. So maybe like Lila saw that and realized all people's performances are fake, and she could not move on and still pretend to live in that kind of society anymore." From My Brilliant Friend.

• Best Post: Laura, for love me tender
• Best Question Award: Jasmine, for "I’d want to talk more about whether the narrator is meant to be sympathetic. Not in a simple “like or dislike” way, but in terms of how the book challenges our expectations of empathy." From Love me tender.
• Surprisingly Philosophical Post Award: Josh, for We're all Sisyphus
• Engagement with the Text through the Use of Quotations Award: Emily, for Love Me Tender

• Best Post: Kim, for Amadou Amal: I want better for women…. Kim now joins the four-award club!
• Engagement with the Text through the Use of Quotations Award: Amanda, for QUEUE THE OUTRO MUSIC.
• Best Title: Alivia, for amadou amal – rightfully impatient
• Best One-Line Summary of the Novel Award: Kavya, for "The novel suggests that change only begins when women stop being patient and start refusing the roles forced onto them." From The Impatient – patience is DEFINITELY NOT a virtue.

• Best Posts: Maysen, for maybe the real romance was the friends we made along the way, and Fiona, for RMST 202: A Conclusion
• Best Metaphor Award: Alivia, for "literature is water and Romance Studies is figuring how they become lakes and oceans." From la fin.
• Best Question Award: Fatima, for "I’d like to see in class whether these texts are actually offering forms of resistance, or are they mostly showing how difficult it is to escape the systems they critique?" From The Journey of RMST 202
• Fantastic Advice for Future Studies Award: Sarah, for Final Conclusion
• Most Thankful Award: Julya, for What do you mean it’s over?? Hello??. Yeah, I know it's a fifth award, but I get to pick the rules. And I see it means that Julya now has four and a half awards (don't ask me exactly where she got a half award from), and so becomes the blogger with the most awards of all!! All this at 9:56pm, so (for Julya) with a massive hour and three minutes before the final blog post deadline!
• Oh, and in other weeks I'd probably give Gurman an award for Epilogue — "A Fitting Conclusion" written and translated by Gurman Lohcham (the title alone deserves one!), but Gurman already has an award for best post of the semester, plus this would mean she would leapfrog over Julya, whom I've just given the most awardiest award, and so this whole award system would disintegrate even more, and now I feel like I'm grading, and the whole point of this course is that I don't give out grades, students choose them, so... meh. No more awards for Gurman.