Hi all!
My name is Chiara and I am a Bookworms.
Hope you have all been keeping well.
I was so excited to read this book but I have very mixed feeling now that I have read it. I hope I’ve managed to make my thoughts make sense but apologies in advance if they make no sense AT ALL.
May the Best Man Win
By Z.R Ellor
Publisher: Roaring Book Press
Date published: 18 May 2021
Format: e-book
Length: 383 pages
Genre: LGBTQ, Contemporary, Roamnce, Young Adult, Transgender, Ficction
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Blurb
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.
Review
I’ve ummed and aaahed about what to say about this book.
I really enjoyed it, let me start by saying that. But our characters were so angry … all the time.
I like a bit of anger. It is a natural, human response to various stimuli. I get angry, and you get angry … or at least I’m hoping you do. But all our characters were angry, at some point in the book and some were angry for most of the book.
At this point I would like to go back and say that I enjoyed reading this book. I read it in two sittings. It was hard to put down. But I just want to ask two things.
A) why was there soooo much anger in this book?
And B) was it too much anger?
I can kind of answer my own questions, but I hope you consider the answers too when you have read the book. Some of the anger was understandable. You got where the anger was coming from. In fact I could almost say I understood where all of the anger was coming from, but there was so much of it, it drowned out a lot of the other emotions in the book. Even when I’d finished the book it felt me feeling angry for the characters even though their fight was over.
And with those last two sentences I believe I may have addressed question B.
On the other hand, I found the characters compelling and i was cheering for them to succeed. This is Z.R Ellor’s first book, and I am curious to see what he does next, in particular if there are any themes that create a common thread between his work.
My favourite character has to be Sol. Sol could have had an entire story on their own. They were brilliant and happy and about the least angry of the characters. However that isn’t my main reason for loving Sol. Sol goes after what they want, because they want it, not because they think the world should want them to want it, or the want it to prove what they can be to someone else. Sol should be a role model for all … mostly.
I hope I haven’t put you off this book too much and I would interested to see if our opinions align on anything.
Bookworms Anonymous 