Always the Almost

A trans pianist makes a New Year''s resolution on a frozen Wisconsin night to win regionals and win back his ex, but a new boy complicates things in Edward Underhill''s heartfelt debut YA rom-dram, Always the Almost.

Sixteen-year-old trans boy Miles Jacobson has two New Year-s resolutions: 1) win back his ex-boyfriend (and star of the football team) Shane McIntyre, and 2) finally beat his slimy arch-nemesis at the Midwest-s biggest classical piano competition. But that-s not going to be so easy. For one thing, Shane broke up with Miles two weeks after Miles came out as trans, and now Shane-s stubbornly ignoring him, even when they literally bump into each other. Plus, Miles- new, slightly terrifying piano teacher keeps telling him that he-s playing like he -doesn-t know who he is--whatever that means.

Then Miles meets the new boy in town, Eric Mendez, a proudly queer cartoonist from Seattle who asks his pronouns, cares about art as much as he does-and mak