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!

Because the world values our lies over our truths, our silence over our voices, our deaths over our lives. “Our story is supposed to be about suffering,” I tell the GSA. “I propose we shine.” 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 ;) In particular, I loved how Ellor tied these complex and messy feelings the characters are feeling to the queer and neurodivergent experience, respectively. In Jeremy’s case, the pure wrath that he feels comes from constantly being disrespected as a man and feeling the need to prove his masculinity through not only achieving, but prototypical ideas that link violence to it. As for Lukas, his need to prove himself comes primarily from how other people view him being autistic combined with the death of his very successful older brother whom he had a complex but mostly negative relationship with. I also very much appreciated the fact that despite how messy and sometimes problematic these characters were, there was either always a narrative admonishing and/or correction of the problematic behavior or a delicate line about subjects such as a person’s gender, sexual identity, and more that was never crossed. there were some things that i REALLY didn’t like about this one. first of all, there’s this one point where a character is talking about being encouraged to use they/them pronouns rather than he/him because people wanted him to be,,,half trans???? this kind of implies that people who use they/them pronouns, this largely being nonbinary people, are not fully trans??? as a nonbinary person who often worries about being ‘not trans enough’ and sometimes purposely avoids fully trans spaces because i have this fear that people will think that about me and reject me this was,,,incredibly invalidating There I go, talking in the past tense. So let’s pretend for a second that we’ll see new episodes of FNL one day and look at what’s going on in this one:

Please try to look presidential, Jeremy. Keep your tongue in your mouth,” Hannah Kim says from behind the camera lens. “This is for our senior class yearbook. Like, your grandkids will be cleaning this out of your attic when you die.”

It’s books like these that make me so incredibly thankful for the #ReadWithPride series because I kind of want to stand on a skyscraper somewhere and throw copies of this book at people down below, urging them to read it (or be pummelled by it which, incidentally, was what happened to my feelings while reading this). Really, May the Best Man Win was nothing like what I expected and dare I say, I might even love it more because of that fact. From the cover and synopsis, you’d think this is a fun queer rom-com about ex-lovers who find themselves fighting for the same homecoming king crown after one of them transitions over the summer. And it is that, but it’s also so much more. 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? 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? But history can only move forward. And I refuse to let my transition define me. This is my senior year. It should be my time to shine. To lead the cheer team and SGA. Be crowned on the Homecoming Court.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◡`) As I said though, this book isn’t without flaws. The major part of the book that irked me was the school only acted on bullying if the bullying got physical. I get why it was included in the story, but it brought up a whirlwind of emotions about memories that I’ve been trying to suppress.

wow!! another anticipated release that i have very complicated feelings about!!! no one is surprised at this point ,,, The anthology ends up being two-thirds female, one-third Northern, two-thirds born in Ireland, two-thirds currently resident – a mix that’s never going to be all-encompassing but still feels representative of the Ireland of today. Why “ironically”, then? Well, by its name and history this anthology claims a certain sameness. Begun by the late David Marcus and subsequently guest edited by Joseph O’Connor, Kevin Barry, Deirdre Madden and now Lucy Caldwell, New Irish Short Stories has become something of an idée fixe in the Irish literary scene. Yet editors have always pushed against its definition. “New” didn’t necessarily mean young, nor did it mean best. “Short” was as short as a piece of string, and “story”, well, as Kevin Barry observed: “these writers are up to all sorts”. And then the zinger: “Irish”. That false determiner of “us”. What exactly was it getting at? like it didn’t have all the tension and yearning i wanted sure?? but i did think the romance was written in a really interesting way! and there were mentions of neopronouns! and a nonbinary side character who i am in love with! and i liked the writing! and i didn’t actually get bored while reading for once! (i swear it’s just easier to talk about things you dislike than like ok) This villainous behavior was a good contrast to the good-natured Jasper Dale, who displayed courage and thoughtfulness. Something however, should be said for the boy who fell into the well. After all, if it wasn't for Teddy, Olivia might have reconsidered Edwin's proposal. Criticismedit: ok so i just read that there’s a very lesbophobic line in this,,, still going to read because autism and trans rep but just want to warn everyone!!! kind of disappointed because this was one of my most anticipated books of the year but whateverrrrr