May the Best Man Win: Zr Ellor

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CWs: sibling death; ableism and internal ableism; misgendering, deadnaming, and transphobia; homophobia; bullying; racism; references to sexual harassment/assault; references to abusive parents and divorce; underage drinking; infidelity; graphic physical assault stars. Don’t let the cover fool you: May the Best Man Win is a complicated and masterfully written queer YA masterpiece that contains just as much bite as it does romance. As a seasoned reader of YA starring teens of the LGBTQ+ community, upon seeing the cover of this book I thought I knew exactly what this story was going to be: another decently written, cute romance between two boys going from rivals to lovers with an equally adorable, illustrated pastel cover. I was completely wrong. This book did contain a swoonworthy m|m romance, but it is a story that is about so much more. Z.R. Ellor has written a multilayered narrative examining academic pressure, toxic masculinity, privilege, and the ways in which institutions of power uphold those with it at the expense of marginalized communities. Above all, he has written a story that centers queer teens and gives them the space to be messy and at times, downright unlikable. when i started reading this book, i noticed it switches from very light-hearted to very, very dark in a matter of seconds. in example, at some point there's a pretty serious conversation and then there's a comparison with a chihuahua. normally this doesn't really bother me, but with this book the balance between light/dark just felt...off. if you read all of that i applaud you, and i really do hope i made some points here. i can sadly NOT recommend this book in any way. stay safe, y'all! May the Best Man Win was a rollercoaster of a read. I think I felt pretty much every emotion at some point while reading this: anger, frustration, joy, sadness. This book was angry, angsty, messy, and honestly, often hard to get through.

naomi and lukas dating. like what was the point of that? it would be a lot better if they were just running together as friends who are mad at jeremy than trying whatever the mess that was. i'm not even mentioning how lukas threw himself into that relationship to distract himself by having a person to focus on. no. just no. I went into this expecting a cute and fluffy romcom. I mean—look at that cover! But... it was not a cute and fluffy romcom. And that's not necessarily a bad thing! It was just not what I was expecting, and it took some getting used to. I do think the idea was good but the execution really fell flat for me since the characters were so terrible. We definitely need more books like this in terms of the representation but this really disappointed me.Are you a plotter or a panster and did you surprise yourself at all with the writing process for this book?

The staff of Cresswell Academy are great examples of ‘performative allyship’ and how that has looked in my own experiences. They’re willing to make easy changes to accommodate trans students, such as accepting Jeremy’s name change and using his correct pronouns, but they refuse to do the hard work of changing the school to make it a truly safe space. Ultimately, their allyship is more about them than the people they’re trying to help, which not only exposes Jeremy and Lukas to harm but weakens their ability to trust others. Also, need to mention Lukas too, Ive never read an autistic Love interest and I loved it! while no autistic, I am neurodivergent, and related to alot of his issues of repressing stims and struggling with social interactions and school. And also Sol! I loved them so much and also related heavily to them. When I was a teen I was so desperate to be a proud queer, but too scared and alone, just like Sol. It felt so nice to see a character with those struggles rise up and make a scene. I think I’d get along with Lukas best—he’s (mostly) always got a calm head on his shoulders. Jeremy has too many of my worst features, and is sort of always primed to be upset—not that I can blame him for that, with the year he’s had! But Jeremy shares my habit of anxious catastrophizing about extreme events, so I don’t think we’d be good to hang out together, even though I wish him all the best! We’d drive each other up a wall.A few things I loved: The diversity of the characters! The second-chance-enemies-to-lovers romance! The friendships! The Homecoming King premise! The character growth! The character dynamics! Jeremy and Lukas were both very unenjoyable characters. They both had good personality traits but the bad definitely overweighted them. Their friends are constantly mistreated and it was so frustrating. It was tiring to see them just give out a simple apology and suddenly everything was fixed. The friends honestly deserved better. and then!! there’s this bit where a character is explaining what terfs are to the mc (?? pretty sure all trans people know what a terf is but ok) and says that most of them are lesbians . and honestly i wasn’t that surprised because unfortunately there’s been a fair few books out lately with invalidating comments towards lesbians like that, equating us to being transphobes (transphobia is a cis person problem not a lesbian problem) A trans boy enters a throw-down battle for the title of Homecoming King with the boy he dumped last summer in ZR Ellor’s contemporary YA debut.

In particular, I loved how Ellor tied these complex and messy feelings the characters are feeling to the queer and neurodivergent experience, respectively. In Jeremy’s case, the pure wrath that he feels comes from constantly being disrespected as a man and feeling the need to prove his masculinity through not only achieving, but prototypical ideas that link violence to it. As for Lukas, his need to prove himself comes primarily from how other people view him being autistic combined with the death of his very successful older brother whom he had a complex but mostly negative relationship with. I also very much appreciated the fact that despite how messy and sometimes problematic these characters were, there was either always a narrative admonishing and/or correction of the problematic behavior or a delicate line about subjects such as a person’s gender, sexual identity, and more that was never crossed.As I said though, this book isn’t without flaws. The major part of the book that irked me was the school only acted on bullying if the bullying got physical. I get why it was included in the story, but it brought up a whirlwind of emotions about memories that I’ve been trying to suppress. Both! When I’m drafting, I generally outline two or three chapters ahead of my current position. I like having some idea where I’m writing to next, as well as having the flexibility to adapt things further down the line should a new idea occur. What surprised me about this book was how easy the first draft came out—it only took me three weeks to write! It was like I’d had the character voices inside me all along, and the second I let them speak, they had a wonderful world full of things to say. Lukas Rivers, football star and head of the Homecoming Committee has had a tough life. After the death of his 'perfect' older brother. He has to go to his funeral where he also ends up getting dumped by his girlfriend who turned out to be a boy. But when he gets challenged by Jeremy to steal his crown. He has also had enough. wow!! another anticipated release that i have very complicated feelings about!!! no one is surprised at this point ,,, I related so much to this book, it hit so many parts of my own experiences. I cried several times. I loved it and will be recommending it to the trans teens I work with!

ZR Ellor is an author and literary agent from the Washington, DC area. An avid lifelong reader, he wrote his first novel when he was twelve years old and never put down his pen. He graduated from Cornell University in 2016 with a dual degree in biology and English literature. His non-literary interests include running, travel, and global cuisine. May The Best Man Win is his debut novel. When these boys take things too far and have to face the lingering butterflies they can't deny AND with the dance being canceled. While they finally face their hurt and emotions? Or will everything burn? Jeremy Harkiss, cheer captain and student body president, won’t let coming out as a transgender boy ruin his senior year. Instead of bowing to the bigots and an outdated school administration, Jeremy decides to make some noise—and how better than by challenging his all-star ex-boyfriend Lukas for the title of Homecoming King?

May the best man/woman win.

like it didn’t have all the tension and yearning i wanted sure?? but i did think the romance was written in a really interesting way! and there were mentions of neopronouns! and a nonbinary side character who i am in love with! and i liked the writing! and i didn’t actually get bored while reading for once! (i swear it’s just easier to talk about things you dislike than like ok) i think a lot about how much i thought this book would mean to me when i saw that it was about an autistic boy who was grieving for his brother, and that there was a trans character and that it a queer romance. i am a trans autistic person who’s brother died not long before i read this so i was so prepared for it to hit hard for me and!! it did but in the wrong way ok some things i liked!!! i liked jeremy’s messiness (i know i just said i didn’t i . please i’m confusing myself at this point) and the exploration of being early in your transition and the validation you yearn for and how sometimes you look for it in unhealthy ways!! (hahaha relatable)