Reviews with content warning for Deadnaming - May the Best Man Win

Reviews tagging 'Deadnaming'

May the Best Man Win by Z.R. Ellor

76 reviews

bashsbooks's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

WOW.

A gripe I usually have with queer fiction - especially queer YA fiction - is that the queer characters are not allowed to be messy disasters. There is a very limited amount of disaster allowed for queer characters before they have to be consumed by guilt and apologies.

That is not a problem here! These guys - the two main characters, Jeremy and Lukas - are selfish and angry and hurting and think that ruling a high school via Homecoming Court can fix that. I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say that it obviously can't. There are some truly painful moments in here, but I loved that. I loved that they did awful things that I totally would've also done if I'd been in their scared and miserable positions when I was seventeen. This is not making excuses for them, though - they are completely in the wrong most of the time- just, it makes their character growth wayyy more satisfying than usual.

This author clearly has a very nuanced understanding of queerness, and he approached how transitioning goes from a number of angles, including an important one that I don't usually see - that trans people themselves need to grow into their genders and resist toxic behaviors for the sake of validity.

I was also pleasantly surprised by the autistic representation in Lukas, which I wasn't aware of before I started reading this. I appreciate that a trans gay guy and an autistic got to be assholes and not use their identities as an excuse, but that those identities were integral to how they process the world. That's a fine line to balance, and I think Ellor did a great job.

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kaydawn's review against another edition

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4.5

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gigi785's review against another edition

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challenging emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

The chapters are written off of one of the main character’s POV which makes it all very easy to get frustrated by the decisions they make😭

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wooyouknow's review against another edition

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emotional funny informative lighthearted medium-paced

2.5

“protecting kids is not political” is such a real statement and that’s all i have to say to this book

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abeeg05's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

So this book was not at all what I expected going into it, which is to say it was a lot less focused on the romance and more on the personal development of the main character. While I appreciated the unique trans point of view that this book offered, i found it hard to properly enjoy the storyline because of the main character.
Why? Because he's a straight up asshole. The attempt at making him realize his own flaws and make amends felt very incomplete and unrealistic and I found it near impossible to root for him at all during the book.
All in all this book was not terrible, but it could have been so much better given the message it was trying to convey.

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