May the Best Man Win: Zr Ellor

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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. the autism rep felt really hmm in general. i really didn't like how only two parts of autism were talked about in this novel: reading people and how the school-system has basically been created for neurotypical people. yes, those are important and i especially appreciated the latter. HOWEVER, there's so much more to autism. i wasn't expecting to see a replica of my own thoughts and feelings here; i was just hoping to see some glimpses of what i learned about autism. it's also not just bad things, things that work against us; it can be so much more. 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. Today we’re pleased to welcome ZR Ellor to the WNDB blog to discuss his YA novel May the Best Man Win, out May 18, 2021! I would love to speak on a panel about reinventing high school stories. May The Best Man Win explores a lot of traditional teenage tropes—Homecoming, bullying, a cheerleader dating a football player—but with a queer twist. You Should See Me In A Crown by Leah Johnson and Only Mostly Devastated by Sophie Gonsalez also insightfully explore and update many of the tropes, and it would be so cool to talk about the choices they made in taking apart and rebuilding these narratives for modern teens.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. 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... 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

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. Overall i wouldn't recommend this book. I had to push myself to even try and finish it in the first place.I would love to talk more about why I chose to write such flawed narrators for this book! Truth be told, I think trans communities can sometimes be more places of conflict than places of healing—the trauma of living in a transphobic society is very real, and unfortunately, we tend to lash out at one another when we’re hurt because of something unrelated. To me, Jeremy’s bad behavior is a direct result of the situation he’s in as a trans teen, a situation he’s unable to navigate perfectly no matter what he tries. And I wish people would focus less on the flaws of a single character and more on the systems that drive them to act as they do. 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. Jeremy Harkiss is a cheer captain, student body president, and an overall role model for many people. He came out as transgender, which was a hard decision overall but with his all-star-ex-boyfriend Lukas running for the title of Homecoming King that he has worked so hard to get, he has had enough. He won't let anything get in his way between him and his crown.