(nonbinary/cis male pairing, #ownvoices for nonbinary rep)

High expectations will be the death of me. This was a perfectly good book, but it still didn't blow me away the way I expected.

I Wish You All The Best is the story of a nonbinary teen with anxiety who gets kicked out of home by their parents after coming out. The coming out scene is in the first chapter, so the book starts with a pretty big punch. Ben moves in with their sister and brother-in-law, who are both supportive, and they make new friends and continue making their art at school. Oh, yes, and there is a boy.

I loved Nathan, he was funny and bright and supportive, and I also liked the two girl side characters, although they didn't feature as much. I also loved that Ben has a nonbinary long-distance friend (who is older than them, although I'm not sure by how much) who has helped them as both a best friend and a kind of "mentor".

Ben goes to a therapist and takes anxiety medication, and while they are unsure about it at first, it's ultimately presented as a positive thing, so that was nice.

Still, this is another one of those queer books that I expected to be fluffy, and it's... not really? It has a happy ending and a cute romance, but it also has shitty parents, anxiety, panic attacks, conflict with the sibling, and I feel like there was more of that than the fluff.

What I found kind of weird is that Ben comes out to Nathan really, really late in the story. Like, you as the reader logically know that Nathan won't react badly, but it's strange to see them grow closer and have a crush and everything while Nathan doesn't know such a defining thing about them. It's understandable, with Ben's bad experiences, but it wasn't what I expected.

I also wished there was some more about what being nonbinary means for Ben. It was nice that it wasn't the only focus and they had other interests, but there was more about the negative consequences of coming out than the positive, affirming sides of being nonbinary, which I really missed.

tldr; This is a really good and important book about a nonbinary teen, and it has a happy ending with a supportive circle. However, it's not as fluffy as I expected, and it fell a little short of my expectations in other ways too. That's just me, though.

content warnings: asshole parents, being kicked out, stressful coming out situation, anxiety, panic attacks, misgendering (both intentional, and due to not being out)

EXTRA WARNING: There is a scene where Ben goes to a party and they are pressured into drinking even though they really don't want to, one of the guy's is being loud and I think actually slaps their butt, and then they have a panic attack, so yeah, it was a lot.