In this same chapter, we learn that the "dream woman" is Alice Reade, who arrived in Carlisle to teach music. The series representative of Jasper's early love interest was named Addy McNiel, and described in "The Story Girl Earns Her Name." 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. Wrong-Name Outburst: During a Rivers family dinner where all the adults are slightly drunk, Lukas tells his parents he might get into Stanford if he becomes Homecoming King. His mom says, "I'm proud of you, Jas-" before she catches herself. I’m fine,” I say. “Super fine.” I move to walk away and then hesitate. “Hey, you’re leading Homecoming Committee this year, right?” I know he is. He’s been on the committee since he was a freshman, working his way up the ladder. Lukas loves organizing complicated, flashy events. “Will you put my name down on the court ballot?” First and foremost, the audiobook was great. I did end up listening to it in 1.25 speed, but I loved the narrator, Avi Roque, and found the voices of all the characters easy enough to follow. I'm also very happy Avi is a member of the LGBTQ+ community themself. They were a great fit, and really brought the book to life!

What cis people don’t get is that it’s not the wrong clothes, the wrong name, the wrong pronoun. It’s the strangling feeling, like you’ve been buried alive and are struggling to breathe, like you don’t exist. That the most important part of you is invisible and, thus, unreal. If people don’t see me as a boy, then they don’t see me at all. TW: ableism, transphobia, homophobia, bullying, deadnaming, misgendering, violence, death of a sibling May the Best Man Win is a 2021 young adult novel by ZR Ellor. It follows the rivalry between trans boy Jeremy Harkiss and his ex, football star Lukas Rivers, as they compete to be Homecoming King.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) 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. 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. The Unfavorite: When Lukas was in elementary and middle school, his family lavished praise on Jason, who was popular and well-behaved and got good grades. Lukas was the problem child who acted out in school and was bullied by classmates. Even now that Lukas is a popular football player, his family still sees him as inferior. He thinks that if he'd died instead of Jason, everyone would have already moved on.

Exes Jeremy and Lukas have a lot on the line with the Homecoming king title. For Lukas, it means stepping out of his late brother's shadow and earning a sure acceptance into one of the ivy leagues that would finally make his parent's proud. For Jeremy, it means everyone has finally accepted what he's always known: he is a guy, and he's not gonna let his pseudo-progressive school and some transphobic classmates stand in his way. But before he came out, Jeremy used to be Lukas's girlfriend, and Lukas never understood why he ended things. Competition heats up as the two vie for the crown, and neither of them seem to care who they hurt in the process. Overall this book was beautiful and fantastic and it made me cry so much! *remembers* I couldn't have asked for anything more...well maybe a less annoying Jeremy? But even Jeremy himself changed and I was really satisfied! Thank you Z.R. Ellor for writing this magnificent fantastic book! This will always stay in my heart ( ´◡‿ゝ◡`) Was there ever any worse advice than write what you know?” asked Kit de Waal last year. The self-described “middle-aged woman” who “visits Tesco and tends to her garden” writes about no such character in her work. Inhabiting “other lives”, exploring “the full range of our imagination and ability” are far more interesting and worthy. Shit. Sorry,” he says, kneeling to scrape up the mess. A tall, suntanned white boy, dark hair messy, a streak of blue paint down the firm line of his chin. “I can’t see over these Homecoming Committee craft supplies—oh. Jeremy.”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! 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? 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! Characters: The supporting cast was great (namely Sol and Naomi), but I often found it a little hard to root for the two heroes, especially Jeremy. I can't exactly say that I didn't like either of them, because at the end of the day, they're really just teens making mistakes (and hopefully learning from them), but both Jeremy (and Lukas) did some things that were a bit hard for me to reconcile with. Jeremy's character was raw and intense and just so...angry. But I also understood where that anger was coming from, and it did give him a lot of room to grow, even if I found it hard to sympathize with him sometimes. And Lukas was far from perfect too, though I did enjoy his character arc. 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.

edit AGAIN: when i first read this i gave it 4.5 stars bc i had been so excited for it for so long and it was hard to even give it something THAT low despite...being deeply disappointed by it. but current topics has finally motivated me to give it the rating it has in my heart at last so!! yay!! this is going to be a complete mess of a review because !! i have no time to edit it but if i don’t write and post it now i never will skdkdkdkd the writing wasn't really my favourite thing either. it felt like a lot of things were told instead of being shown, which resulted in some things feeling very dry. when it is first mentioned in the book lukas's brother died, i really tried not to think of this but it really did feel like the typical "wattpad" storytelling. the author literally explains what happened in lukas's inner monologue. so, no, not a big fan of that. Well Done, Son" Guy: Lukas hopes that if he becomes Homecoming King and gets accepted into a top college, he can finally earn his parents' pride and save their marriage.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. Just you promise me Sara, when your turn comes around, you won't get all bamboozled by this love business." --Hetty King 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... 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.

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) This book had been on my TBR since I first heard of it, so I’m glad that I mostly enjoyed it. It wasn’t without flaws, but I found that there were important conversations about what it’s like to be transgender in this book and the story as a whole was really entertaining. I also loved all the fun pop culture references throughout this book. 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 ;) Ok, so I was deceived by the cover. This is NO romcom! This book needs a trigger warning so here it is: transphobia, grief, homophobia, ableism, sexism, discrimination, bullying, blood (minor), divorce, drugs, sexual assault, homelessness, mental illness, physical assault. It's not really spoilery but I put it under a spoiler tag.

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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? Overall i wouldn't recommend this book. I had to push myself to even try and finish it in the first place. This work will shake you up a little. It will be like going to a “Foreign Movies No Subtitles group”, as two of Yan Ge’s characters do, or, as one of Lisa McInerney’s characters does, dating Gérard Depardieu without speaking any French. You might be expected to recalibrate your balance, to learn and relearn. Which is what’s great about it. You will gain something, if you hop aboard, look around; as the great American short story writer Lorrie Moore said, “see what can be done”. Niamh Donnelly Olivia accepts Jasper's proposal. Edwin Clark's weasily actions helped elevate Jasper to a heroic level. I had many problems with this book but first off, the characters. Specifically the main ones. As a transmasc (and non binary) person i was really excited to meet 𝗝𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗺𝘆 𝗛𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗻𝗶𝘀𝘀, our main character. He's definitely my least favorite mc that i've read about in a while. Most of what happens with Jeremy throughout the book is just him messing up his relationships. He has huge anger issues which never get better throughout the novel. Jeremy definitely has a right to be selfish but there's definitely so much development that he should've gotten.