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A review by perpetualpages
May the Best Man Win by Z.R. Ellor
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
CWs: sibling death; ableism and internal ableism; misgendering, deadnaming, and transphobia; homophobia; bullying; racism; references to sexual harassment/assault; references to abusive parents and divorce; underage drinking; infidelity; graphic physical assault
This book is not a rom-com. It's a story about two hurt, twisted, angry rivals projecting all of their pain, rage, and deep-seated need for affirmation onto their school's race for homecoming king. It's intense, and the stakes are higher than I've ever seen in a story like this. If You Should See Me in a Crown had an evil twin on the polar opposite side of the emotional spectrum and then had a baby with The Witch King, you would have this book.
I think this is a really important addition to the YA contemporary canon, especially as a piece of trans fiction, but I can already tell that it's going to be polarizing and get a bad rap for having "unlikeable" characters. It's definitely one of those narrative car crashes you can't look away from, and I think I kind of loved it. With that said, I'm still processing what that means.
As I said, May the Best Man Win is a story that centers two angry, grieving, messy teenagers who don't know where to place their rage and their frustration when it feels like the world is taking away their control, and so they project all of that onto each other, especially when they already have a challenging history as exes. Each of them knows the other person "can take" their ugliness and their anger, so they pour all of it into this homecoming race. Is it healthy? No. Does it set a "good example"? No. But it does make sense.
And when I say that they're truly battling it out for Homecoming King, I don't mean some light sabotage, spying, or shenanigans. I mean they are actively trying to hurt one another and hurt each other's chances, and they do things that could potentially harm themselves and other people, both physically and emotionally. There are times when they definitely cross the moral line, and it's purely because there is so much at stake for each of them. It is an ugly battle between two ruthless, unforgiving exes, and truth be told, that take-no-prisoners approach was one of the biggest draws of the story for me, because the book is not attempting to romanticize or sanctify either character, which is something we rarely see especially in queer YA fiction.
Jeremy is a really fascinating character to me, because he is so terrified and isolated, and a lot of his fear and anger stems from the fact that he's afraid no one will truly love him while seeing him for his transness. He's also grieving, in a way, because he's mourning the life he was never allowed to have until coming out and transitioning, and also the femininity and feminine spaces that he's had to give up in the process of transitioning. Above all, the story does such job of commenting on how transmasc people, specifically, are in danger of adopting toxic masculinity as a means to shield ourselves and "successfully" pass, if our goal is to pass.
The story really looks at how Jeremy has had to distance himself from all things "feminine"—not just clothing and make-up, but even "feminine" behaviors and attitudes such as softness, empathy, generosity, and openness—just to be awarded the badge of "manhood" on cis men's terms. And it's not that he necessarily wants to disconnect himself from those things, but he feels like he's not allowed to have them or express them, because that opens the door to people invalidating his identity. And no, that shouldn't be the case, but that's the way it is. So he adopts a lot of aggression and even violence because he thinks if he can't get people to see him as a man, maybe he can get them to fear him as a man, because he thinks fear is a shortcut to respect.
So there's a lot tied up for him in this competition, because he sees winning the crown as getting his classmates and the school administration to not only see him as a man, but like him as a man enough to vote for him, and to see him as a man who deserves to *win* and not merely exist. There's equally as much tied up in the homecoming race for Lukas, who is grieving the loss of his brother and wanting to prove to his family that he can secure a future for himself as a queer Autistic person, since winning Homecoming King pretty much guarantees an acceptance to an Ivy League school. Not only that, but his family is falling apart because of his brother's death, and his parents are on the verge of divorce. So he's also trying to prove that he can be a source of pride and happiness for him just like his brother was.
When you take all of those layers into consideration, you realize it's a lot. It's dark, it's fucked up, and it's not right to put all that on the shoulders of two teenage boys. And yet, that is exactly what the world does. This story understands that we don't simply arrive at realizations, we come into to them, we bring our baggage into them along the way, and how we come into the decisions we make is just as important as the decisions themselves. And, in truth, the process of coming into ourselves and our choices is not always palatable, neat, or clear-cut, and that's okay.
This story touches on so many valid issues and dangers that transmasculine people face, more than I can possibly address in this review. But it's also about what comes next after the breaking point, why it can feel so scary and impossible to ask for love, and how to use anger and action in productive ways. The main thing I took issue with is the pace of the romance, because that switch from rivalry to second chance romance felt a bit underdeveloped in the space given. And, by extension, I wasn't fully satisfied with the ending note either, which felt a little incongruous with the tone of the story and the characters.
With that said, I haven't stopped thinking about this book since I finished it, and I think it's going to be such a gift and a necessary offering to young trans readers.
This book is not a rom-com. It's a story about two hurt, twisted, angry rivals projecting all of their pain, rage, and deep-seated need for affirmation onto their school's race for homecoming king. It's intense, and the stakes are higher than I've ever seen in a story like this. If You Should See Me in a Crown had an evil twin on the polar opposite side of the emotional spectrum and then had a baby with The Witch King, you would have this book.
I think this is a really important addition to the YA contemporary canon, especially as a piece of trans fiction, but I can already tell that it's going to be polarizing and get a bad rap for having "unlikeable" characters. It's definitely one of those narrative car crashes you can't look away from, and I think I kind of loved it. With that said, I'm still processing what that means.
As I said, May the Best Man Win is a story that centers two angry, grieving, messy teenagers who don't know where to place their rage and their frustration when it feels like the world is taking away their control, and so they project all of that onto each other, especially when they already have a challenging history as exes. Each of them knows the other person "can take" their ugliness and their anger, so they pour all of it into this homecoming race. Is it healthy? No. Does it set a "good example"? No. But it does make sense.
And when I say that they're truly battling it out for Homecoming King, I don't mean some light sabotage, spying, or shenanigans. I mean they are actively trying to hurt one another and hurt each other's chances, and they do things that could potentially harm themselves and other people, both physically and emotionally. There are times when they definitely cross the moral line, and it's purely because there is so much at stake for each of them. It is an ugly battle between two ruthless, unforgiving exes, and truth be told, that take-no-prisoners approach was one of the biggest draws of the story for me, because the book is not attempting to romanticize or sanctify either character, which is something we rarely see especially in queer YA fiction.
Jeremy is a really fascinating character to me, because he is so terrified and isolated, and a lot of his fear and anger stems from the fact that he's afraid no one will truly love him while seeing him for his transness. He's also grieving, in a way, because he's mourning the life he was never allowed to have until coming out and transitioning, and also the femininity and feminine spaces that he's had to give up in the process of transitioning. Above all, the story does such job of commenting on how transmasc people, specifically, are in danger of adopting toxic masculinity as a means to shield ourselves and "successfully" pass, if our goal is to pass.
The story really looks at how Jeremy has had to distance himself from all things "feminine"—not just clothing and make-up, but even "feminine" behaviors and attitudes such as softness, empathy, generosity, and openness—just to be awarded the badge of "manhood" on cis men's terms. And it's not that he necessarily wants to disconnect himself from those things, but he feels like he's not allowed to have them or express them, because that opens the door to people invalidating his identity. And no, that shouldn't be the case, but that's the way it is. So he adopts a lot of aggression and even violence because he thinks if he can't get people to see him as a man, maybe he can get them to fear him as a man, because he thinks fear is a shortcut to respect.
So there's a lot tied up for him in this competition, because he sees winning the crown as getting his classmates and the school administration to not only see him as a man, but like him as a man enough to vote for him, and to see him as a man who deserves to *win* and not merely exist. There's equally as much tied up in the homecoming race for Lukas, who is grieving the loss of his brother and wanting to prove to his family that he can secure a future for himself as a queer Autistic person, since winning Homecoming King pretty much guarantees an acceptance to an Ivy League school. Not only that, but his family is falling apart because of his brother's death, and his parents are on the verge of divorce. So he's also trying to prove that he can be a source of pride and happiness for him just like his brother was.
When you take all of those layers into consideration, you realize it's a lot. It's dark, it's fucked up, and it's not right to put all that on the shoulders of two teenage boys. And yet, that is exactly what the world does. This story understands that we don't simply arrive at realizations, we come into to them, we bring our baggage into them along the way, and how we come into the decisions we make is just as important as the decisions themselves. And, in truth, the process of coming into ourselves and our choices is not always palatable, neat, or clear-cut, and that's okay.
This story touches on so many valid issues and dangers that transmasculine people face, more than I can possibly address in this review. But it's also about what comes next after the breaking point, why it can feel so scary and impossible to ask for love, and how to use anger and action in productive ways. The main thing I took issue with is the pace of the romance, because that switch from rivalry to second chance romance felt a bit underdeveloped in the space given. And, by extension, I wasn't fully satisfied with the ending note either, which felt a little incongruous with the tone of the story and the characters.
With that said, I haven't stopped thinking about this book since I finished it, and I think it's going to be such a gift and a necessary offering to young trans readers.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Bullying, Homophobia, Transphobia, and Violence
Moderate: Child death, Deadnaming, Grief, and Infidelity
Minor: Domestic abuse and Sexual assault