May the Best Man Win: Zr Ellor

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Don’t let the cover deceive you, this book is not a cute, lighthearted romance. It’s messy and can be brutal at times, but some of the representation was so important in this book that I feel people should give this one a shot if it sounds interesting. I’m very torn on how to rate this book because I have a love hate relationship with it, but my star rating reflects how much I genuinely enjoyed it. Are you a plotter or a panster and did you surprise yourself at all with the writing process for this book? This book contains trans, nonbinary, autism, gay, and lesbian representation, which was a major reason why I added this book to my TBR in the first place. This representation was included very thoughtfully and the representation brought up important messages about these topics that were extremely eye-opening to me. edit: i’ve been meaning to change my rating for a WHILE but couldn’t get myself to because this really was one of my most anticipated books of the year, and i enjoyed some parts and trans and autistic rep is important but !!! maybe the fact that i could rant about this book for hours outweighs that Umm why are all my most anticipated reads disappointments this year? 2021 is by far the most disappointing year in terms of new releases, arcs, and just finding a good book in general.

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) 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. Did you do any research for this book and if you did, what’s one of your favorite things you learned?after all that, having multiple chapters of friendship, love, power of community, butterfly and roses was just so messed up. the whole book y'all were the worst to each other, all characters, and now suddenly it's all peace and quiet among each other? how? You wanna talk about the plot, what plot? The only thing here was two teenagers who don't know how to communicate, transphobic and homophobic people everywhere and a homecoming prom that's only here so we have an excuse to read a book about two teenagers that aren't even good to themselves. At least I learned more about toxic friendship ;) E-ARC generously provided by Macmillan Children's Publishing Group through Netgalley in an exchange for an honest review. Thank you so much Sol was probably my favorite character which probably says something since they were just a side character mainly used to advance Jeremy and Lukas' developement. They are a nonbinary latinx person, (like me) so that probably helps. I would've loved to hear more about them. While we're on the topic of characters that deserved better we should probably talk about Naomi as well. She's an Asian girl that barely got any "screen" time. She, sadly, was also used as a way to develop Lukas and Jeremy more. As I said, May the Best Man Win is a story that centers two angry, grieving, messy teenagers who don't know where to place their rage and their frustration when it feels like the world is taking away their control, and so they project all of that onto each other, especially when they already have a challenging history as exes. Each of them knows the other person "can take" their ugliness and their anger, so they pour all of it into this homecoming race. Is it healthy? No. Does it set a "good example"? No. But it does make sense.

we don't see a lot of jeremy's emotions because he feels like he should all hide it, which is fair and realistic. but what i personally don't get is how we as readers didn't get some kind if exclusive look into his brain. i don't know; i already didn't like him and his reasoning was hard to follow if you didn't really knew how he felt... And when I say that they're truly battling it out for Homecoming King, I don't mean some light sabotage, spying, or shenanigans. I mean they are actively trying to hurt one another and hurt each other's chances, and they do things that could potentially harm themselves and other people, both physically and emotionally. There are times when they definitely cross the moral line, and it's purely because there is so much at stake for each of them. It is an ugly battle between two ruthless, unforgiving exes, and truth be told, that take-no-prisoners approach was one of the biggest draws of the story for me, because the book is not attempting to romanticize or sanctify either character, which is something we rarely see especially in queer YA fiction. TW: ableism, transphobia, homophobia, bullying, deadnaming, misgendering, violence, death of a siblingPlease please please please please let me find a best friend as perfect as her! Naomi was just so clueless as to how much Jeremy was using her and when she finally found out and realized I was so freaking happy! Although we don't see that much of her in this book I can tell she's an amazing person with good morals. with a concept like this one, i never thought i would have to say this, but...may the best man win is perhaps the worst and most infuriating book i've ever read. Which brings me to my absolute favorite part of this novel: the fact that Z.R. Ellor wrote a novel that openly allowed to its two queer teen protagonists to be complex, angry, and at times, downright messy and unlikable. I saw Z.R. Ellor tweet about this a few months before I read this, but this novel outright refuses to sanitize its trans and gay and autistic and gay protagonist into wholesome and easily digestible queer teens who are easy to root for. Several times throughout the story, each of the main protagonists do things that harms their friends, people around them, and even each other; while I can’t say I quite enjoyed reading about it most of the time, I loved how this book gave its queer characters the space to be fully fleshed out characters who aren’t beacons of goodness. Anyway. Based off the cover and synopsis this seems like exes from enemies to possible lovers but there’s not really any romance. I don’t care if there’s romance or not necessarily but I thought that that was such a great idea. I wanted a light hearted rom-com with trans rep!! Plus, Lukas is autistic and coping with grief so there was representation there too.

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. 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. My sweet bb Lukas. I love that kid. An angel who just wants to keep his family together. A kid who struggles with social cues and nuance and has no idea why the guy he loves dumped him out of no-where before coming out. A boy who wants to be homecoming king so he can get into an ivy school and finally fill the shoes left behind by his perfect brother. I'm a bit bias... he's definitely not perfect. He makes mistakes. He takes things too far in his competition for the crown. what i can actually talk about is the way jeremy threatened to tell the entire school lukas is autistic when he damn well knows lukas isn't ready for that yet. if you didn't know, i myself am autistic and i was in no way okay with this. not because i think being autistic is something someone should hide or be ashamed for, BUT it should always be your own choice to tell that. your choice to decide when, where, how, and even if. jeremy just crossed too many lines here and i would never forgive someone for even thinking of threatening with something like that... lukas' video with photos of him and jeremy pre transition and how he didn't even realize it was wrong. like your ex breaks up with you, comes out as trans and you don't even get educated on that? one thing i definitely couldn't wrap my head around was how much they cared about each other before all the shit hit the fan. because one moment the things i read sounded so horrible the whole relationship before felt bad and other moment it was "we were in love all along." like. what?