Name: May the Best Man Win
Rating: 3.121951219512195 (41 reviews)
ISBN: 9781250625120

Z. R. Ellor

ZR Ellor's May the Best Man Win is a debut YA novel about a throw-down battle for Homecoming King between a transgender teen and the boy he dumped last summer...

May the Best Man Win

Ouarda 

Nice plot, but man, Jeremy sucks. 

I liked the way the book portrays the mentality of high schoolers, because let's be honest, no one is mature and emotionally evolved in their senior year. But Jeremy still sucks.

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. 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 outdate 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? Lukas Rivers, football star and head of the Homecoming Committee, is just trying to find order in his life after his older brother’s funeral and the loss long-term girlfriend—who turned out to be a boy. But when Jeremy threatens to break his heart and steal his crown, Lukas kick starts a plot to sabotage Jeremy’s campaign. When both boys take their rivalry too far, the dance is on the verge of being canceled. To save Homecoming, they’ll have to face the hurt they’re both hiding—and the lingering butterflies they can’t deny.

Flavia Louise

Gabriel Noel 

ALRIGHT.

Anything I can say about this book has already been said much better than I could in the reviews here, so I will just agree with them. This book had an amazing premise and then was ruined by unlikable characters, bad takes, and poor storytelling.

I'm really disappointed in a lot of the lgbtq YA stories that have been coming out this past year and this one takes the cake.

As a trans man this book was something I was looking forward to and just totally fell flat. I don't want to write out all my issues here, because tbh, I don't really have the energy but pls feel free to ask any questions if you see this and are unsure of reading it. (tw for internal/external homophobia, transphobia, racism, slurs, and death.)

Elska Bee

1.5

This book was a hot mess in a bad way. I wanted to like it so badly because it features a main character who is a trans guy and the other main character has autism. The rep side of things was generally handled well, and the internal conflicts about neurodivergency, gender, and sexuality were the best parts. *Contrapoints voice* aS a tRaNs pErSOn I felt that the internal conflicts and struggles Jeremy experienced were highly relatable, especially in relation to passing vs ideal presentation.

BUT unfortunately the good parts were few and far between. The plot was stupid and barely existent (so... I'm not American but I'm pretty sure winning homecoming king ain't that important, they act like everything will suddenly be perfect if they just win). I hated that most of the homophobia/transphobia was concentrated in one over the top neo-nazi privileged rich white boy that everyone can hate. There were other more minor and realistic instances of transphobia and the book would have worked better if they'd cut the bully character out entirely.

Which brings me to my next and most important point: this book is dark. If you want a cute and comforting queer read, this ain't it. All the characters, especially Jeremy, are f***ed up assholes and not in a lovable way. They make ridiculously dumb decisions that no person would make and consistently ruin their own lives and the lives of everyone around them. I could forgive it if that was the point, but it was just way too far off the rails to have a clear message. In the end there's some stuff about how it's okay to ask your friends for help, that community is important, and that you shouldn't push everyone away. But it feels a bit disingenuous considering how little the characters actually suffer any real consequences.

Heck, it wasn't even good from a romance perspective because the relationship development isn't on the page.

TL:DR you probably shouldn't bother reading this book.

Cecília Amaral

TW: ableism, transphobia, homophobia, bullying, deadnaming, misgendering, violence, death of a sibling


1.5 
Okay, hell is officially over! I finish it and what a torturous experience it was.

There's a Taylor Swift song called Better Than Revenge and a line that would pretty sure describe Jeremy is "Sophistication isn't what you wear or who you know, or pushing people down to get you where you wanna go". I say this because that's exactly what he does, THE WHOLE BOOK. I tried so hard to like him because he was the main character but at some point, I was just hoping he'd have a great character development so I could say I liked him at some part but I didn't feel that it happened at all. The thing is, Jeremy did so really bad and serious things, he stepped in people's emotions, made pretty reckless decisions against other people and didn't even felt sorry at all, of course, he thought things like "I'm a shitty person" but didn't apologize at the moment he recognized it, so at the ending, everything was brushed off and they lived happily ever after, BUT NOT ME. Of course, I empathize with the situations he found himself in, been misgender and people being transphobic was terrible but that doesn't mean you can be a toxic person, and especially being toxic to people who didn't have a thing to do with any of this, quoting one of my favourite series "sometimes you can choose to not be a dick", in Jeremy's case that would be "sometimes you can choose therapy ". At first, Lukas was the only parable character but by the end, he was looking exactly like Jeremy so you already know what I think about him. Their romance was even blander than my English essays.

You wanna talk about the plot, what plot? The only thing here were 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 ;)

The book should have been focused on the side characters that were way more interesting and just seemed to be there to show some "representation". This was such a disappointment.

Becca Futrell

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an audiobook of May the Best Man Win in exchange for an honest review!

Content Warnings: Death of Sibling, Bullying, Sexual Harassment, Transphobia, Deadnaming, Misgendering, Homophobia

How CUTE is the cover to May the Best Man Win? Very, amiright? Unfortunately, the book is not as cute as the cover. There's a lot of drama & triggering moments in May the Best Man Win -- I mean, just look at those content warnings above. 

I almost DNF'ed this book & after actually finishing, I've come to the conclusion that I could have gone the rest of my life with not finishing this one. But, I swear this review isn't just going to be me insulting this book, because there's one thing that I really respect out of it & that's the insight on discrimination against the Trans community. We all know that the Trans community doesn't have it easy -- they are often targeted in hate crimes, ridiculed by transphobes & in general, not treated as good as they should be. However, even recognizing their struggles, there's just something about seeing it play out on the pages of a book that really opens your eyes. 

With that being said, it's very unfortunate that a book that has such a heavy & important message is polluted with characters that absolutely suck. Okay, okay -- there were a couple of side characters that were perfectly fine, but our leading characters? No thank you. I spent more time being irritated with the characters than actually enjoying what was going on. I wasn't sold on the conflicts during their feud & I definitely wasn't sold on the enemies-to-lovers romance.

Kamila 

** spoiler alert **
           1,5⭐
I was really exicted for this book but now I am just dissapointed. 
- side characters felt like figures without any depth and were there just to help Jeremy and Lukas 
- Lukas figured out that he is gay after just 2 lines of thinking even though he said that he was attracted to girls before and suddenly he says that he is gay. It took me few months or even longer to figure out my sexuality so realizing you are gay in 5 minutes after 18 years of thinking you are straight seems kinda impossible 
- Jeremy and Lukas are so unlikable. Jeremy says that he is wearing mask but we never see what is under his mask even in his own thoughts. He even says that their egos are too big for this school. They are both very annoying 
- it sometimes felt like a bad wattpad novel 
- too much drama for small things 
- they often say that they are the most popular boys in school and used to be the most popular couple but it is not proved in any scene, only they say that 
- do universities really care so much about who was chosen Homecoming King/Queen? Because it seemed like this is more important than grades 
- '"Trans-exclusive radical feminists.” Anna picks up an old beret and tries it on. “A lot of them are lesbians, unfortunately. They hate trans people because they like to claim they’re the most oppressed queers in existence.”' Lesbians are only portrayed like this 
- feminists are portrayed as women who either are transphobic or care only about white people (especially men) and don't want to help minorities 
- Jeremy and Lukas are terrible to each other all the time but suddenly it turns out they are in love all the time? 
- I didn't like blaming Jeremy's agression on testosterone because I heard too many times that I have to forgive boys their behaviour because it is just their hormones

Together, they'll find out what a crown is truly worth.

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 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?

Lukas Rivers, football star and head of the Homecoming Committee, is just trying to find order in his life after his older brother's funeral and the loss of his long-term girlfriend who turned out to be a boy. But when Jeremy threatens to break his heart and steal his crown, Lukas kick-starts a plot to sabotage Jeremy's campaign.

JEREMY NAOMI for HC COURT

When both boys take their rivalry too far, they jeopardize the entire dance. To save Homecoming, they'll have to face the hurt they're both hiding- and the lingering butterflies they can't deny.

May the Best Man Win

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