I Wish You All the Best Kindle Edition

Book is gay, book is good, book is gay and good.

I’m still recovering from this book but as my school courses began yesterday, I wanted to go ahead and write this review while I have a little time.I happened to see in Mason Deaver’s Instagram story that hoopla had the audiobook for I Wish You All The Best a bit more than a week early. I was SO EXCITED because I have a hoopla account via my local public library. Since this doesn’t affect first week sales and this is one of my most anticipated books of 2019, I decided to dive in head first. I’ll put the TW/CWs at the end of this post. Let’s jump right into the review!The characters in I Wish You All The Best were so amazing. Ben De Backer is now my child and I will defend them with my life. Seriously. They’re all so well written that from the very beginning I was fully invested in everyone on the page. It is obvious that Mason Deaver put their heart and soul into these characters. The representation offered is beautiful and each character could easily walk right off the page. I especially loved seeing the slow burn between Ben and Nathan. Slow burns are my new fave.There is one thing that I knew going into this review I would need to talk about so here we go. I went into the novel knowing that there would be amazing non-binary representation. It was just as amazing and more as what I was expecting. However, there was something else that I wasn’t expecting and it took me completely off guard. I don’t know how to share this other than to quote so….“Touch aversion can be common in people who deal with panic attacks or people dealing with anxiety. In fact, there are some people who are just born or developed that way, like asexual or aromantic people.”I… was not expecting this? When I got to this part of the story, I was so surprised and overwhelmed that I wept. Like full-on-ugly-cry-don’t-talk-to-me-I’m-not-fine wept. I had to pause the story and walk away for a few minutes. This book is the first time I’ve seen any rep for being touch averse, which I am. I never thought I would see that represented at all and even now I’m tearing up about it a bit.I Wish You All The Best is a contemporary novel, which means it’s a realistic fiction set in modern times. The majority of the story takes place in Raleigh, North Carolina. I haven’t been to Raleigh, but I do live in another large city in the southern United States, so it wasn’t hard for me to get a feel for the environment. Also because of that though, I’m not the best judge of the large-scale world building. Honestly, I’m the worst at that with contemporaries anyway. But each of the locations was given enough of a description that it was immersive so do what you will with that knowledge.The story itself is perfectly paced from beginning to end, with twists and turns at just the right moments. I would even go so far as to say that I Wish You All The Best is a work of art. I can’t say I loved every moment of it because there were parts that were meant to make the reader uncomfortable (and I was) but this is a book I’ll definitely be rereading in the future.I Wish You All The Best was right up at the top of my most anticipated 2019 releases list. There is so much hype surrounding it. And it still manages to exceed all of the high expectations placed upon it. I can not wait to read more from Mason Deaver in the future.

Oh. My. I will be talking about this book forever. No one will ever be able to get me to stop because it is so damn important. The world is dumb and set in its ways and awful and patriarchal and sexist and homophobic and all together horrible. But this book is pure magic. Written by a nonbinary author, with a nonbinary main character, I Wish You All The Best brings something crucial to the world. Representation. While some facets of the queer community have become more prevalent in books, especially YA books, characters that identify as nonbinary are seldom. In IWYATB, Ben comes out to their parents and is abrubtly kicked out. After finding their estranged sister, Ben ends up living with her and her husband. After enrolling in a new school, Ben meets Nathan. Oh Nathan. Sweet, funny, and wonderful Nathan. Ben and Nathan become friends, after some prodding, and they work towards a happier life. Ben begins seeing a therapist who specializes in queer kids and eventually take strides to overcoming their traumatic outing experience and expressing their feelings for Nathan. This is a coming of age story like no other. IWYATB brings up a conversation than you may either be uncomfortable with or just unknowledgeable about, but it is a conversation that needs to take place. There is always more to know and seek to understand.Pronouns are important.Gender is Fluid.Friends are the family you don't get you choose.Let people be who they are.Don't be ignorant.This book is heartbreaking, joyous, magical, and pure all wrapped up in a purple and yellow bow. You need to read this book. Like now. Find a way to get this book into your hands.Side note, Nathan and Ben have been added to my most favorite characters ever club. I seriously love them so much and feel like I know them. Jeez, books are wonderful.

I have been following Mason Deaver on Twitter for a long time, after seeing them tweet about writing a non-binary love story. Every excerpt or mention made me even more excited for I Wish You All the Best, their debut novel.⁠⁠When Ben comes out as non-binary to their parents, it goes as horribly wrong as a coming out possibly can, leaving them standing at a public phone calling their sister to come get them. A new life with their sister, a new school, the opportunity to live as their authentic self, and a therapist to help them with their out of control anxiety.⁠⁠And then there's Nathan, who takes Ben under his wing. Is Nathan just a friend, or could there be more?⁠⁠This is both a love story, and a story of coming out. I Wish You All the Best has some beautiful moments of levity and romance, but also dark honesty around the difficulty of growing up with parents who refuse to accept who their child is. ⁠

I don’t think I’ve ever read a YA book with a non-binary person as the lead character. So of course when I heard about this debut from Mason Deaver I was like I NEED THIS NOW. I’ve followed Mason for a few years now on twitter so I’ve been excited for this book for a while.Content warnings: misgendering, homophobia, enbyphobia, anxiety, depression, being kicked out of homeI Wish You All The Best follows Ben De Backer after they come out as non-binary to their parents. They have been thrown out of their home and all that’s left for them to do is to phone their estranged sister. She takes them in and Ben has to start at a whole new school, make new friends and find a whole new life.This book is so stunning. It both made me happy and broke my heart. There is no other word for this bar “Groundbreaking”. With so few books out there even featuring non-binary supporting characters, this book from ownvoices author Mason Deaver is incredibly important.Whilst I’ve never been thrown out of the house by my parents for being who I am, there were a lot of moments and struggles Ben went through where I felt I could relate a lot. They struggled a lot with anxiety and depression, which is something I know a lot about . I felt like Deaver covered these topics incredibly well and I loved that they included Ben seeing a therapist. I feel like a lot of YA contemporaries skirt around therapy or just show it in a bad light. There are a lot of good therapists out there and it really can help.Whilst this book was quite a hard read at times, Deaver balanced humour along with the pain and sadness really well. This book feels hopeful. There are of course a lot of times with a lot of melancholy but Deaver does a wonderful job in reminding the reader that things can eventually look up. They also do a fantastic job of finding moments of humour in severe sadness.I loved the different ways that Deaver examined familial relationships through Ben. We see Ben’s opinion of their parents and their sister change through the process of coming out. They feel like Hannah left them to be stuck with their parents, and whilst dealing with that whilst living with Hannah they realise that it wasn’t the situation they originally thought.Nathan is a sweet cinnamon roll and I absolutely love him. He takes everything in stride and is just such a positive force in Ben’s life. I personally would like to have seen a little more of Nathan and Ben’s relationship but this is for my romance loving heart more than anything.I honestly adored this book and I am so excited for whatever Mason Deaver comes out with next.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I found the writing to be excellent, this is the authors first novel but they did a great job in getting me to feel what Ben was feeling which I think is always a sign of a good author. Whilst Ben is struggling with anxiety attacks I found myself feeling helpless along side them. Don’t worry, whilst this book does deal with heavy topics there’s also a lot of beautiful moments and I think Mason did a fantastic job in making this book hit just the right tone. I loved the romance here, it’s quite clear early on that there is a mutual attraction between Nathan and Ben but these two take a while to realise it for themselves and I just loved watching them uncover their feelings. My only negative was that I would’ve liked more about the sibling relationship between Hannah and Ben. They have a very interesting dynamic to me, in them having not seen each other for so long and now Hannah is Ben’s guardian, that I would’ve liked to get more on that.Overall, this was a fantastic read and i’m very happy that I did read it. This was the first book I ever read with a nonbinary MC and I do actually feel like I learnt a lot from it, books have so much power and influence that I cannot stress enough how important it is to get own voices representation in them. I think this was an incredibly important book and I hope i’ll be seeing more nonbinary representation in the future.

I don't really have anything to add to Layla's excellent review, except to highly recommend this book. Oh, and to say that I hope I find my own Nathan someday.

This book had everything: great characters, realistic relationships, a well thought out plot that was both heart-wrenching and heart-warming. It was perfect. My only issue is that it was too short, I didn't want it to end!