The One True Me and You

This was awesome fun read. A one-sit reading binge. All the best things of fandom, writing, and romance all rolled into one adorable package.I adored both MCs, Remi K. England did an great job of crafting these characters and making them real people with depth and distinctively wonderful personalities.
Read this book. You will LOVE it.

Special thanks to St. Martin’s Griffin and Netgalley for sharing this ARC with me in exchange for an honest review.

I wish this book didn't end. This is a love letter to loving things, and I'm here for it. Teagan and Kay's story was so sweet, I would recommend this to everyone.

This book has a permanent place in the spot in my heart that exists just to love nerdy, queer fandom books. If you read and loved Ashley Poston's Once Upon a Con books, Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde, Down With This Ship by Katie Kingman then you'll love how this book highlights the amazing world of fandom. And if you're a fan of Julie Murphy's Dumplin' or Miss Meteor by Anna Marie McLemore and Tehlor Kay Mejia you'll love how the story takes on pageant culture and it's complicated relationship to feminism. It was a little insta-lovey but still so adorable.

Remi K England has written the book that everyone should read. Full of great characters that show immense growth in such a short span of time to breaking down barriers, this is the book for 2021.
The One True Me and You destroys stereotypes at the same time as teaching about pronouns and how easy they are to use in everyday life. However, most importantly for me, was the self discovery journey that we got to join Kay on. It felt like healing to me. A wonderful must read book from a debut author.

This was a sweet, adorable read! Teagan is a pageant queen competing in for a national title, with a few secrets kept safe from the pageant world. Kay is fanfic author attending a con with their friends, that just happens to be held in the same place as Miss Cosmic Teen USA. Both characters are working on discovering themselves and becoming more confident in who they truly are while dealing with pressures and standards of traditional society. There's a meet-cute, there's acceptance and joy, there's learning that there's more than meets the eye, and there's a lot of chasing your dreams and gaining confidence by being your most true self.

Highly recommend for people who like YA, rom-coms, and the Miss Congeniality movie, with a side of geekery and fandoms (especially Sherlock)! This book went by so quickly and the pace was fantastic. England wrote very honestly about the experience of trying out new pronouns and trying to figure out who you are, but also kept a happy, positive tone throughout, which I enjoyed reading! 4.5 stars rounded up.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This book is everything I love in a YA book. As an adult reader of young adult books, sometimes the angst and drama of the teenage years is hard to revisit. I don't always feel like I can relate or enjoy YA when I find the problems to be so small in the grand scheme of things-- I didn't feel that way with this book. The characters definitely talk, act, and feel like highschoolers, but the issues that they are facing aren't small, meaningless dramas. These characters tackle sexual identity, discrimination, bullying, and self-esteem in a way that is meaningful and relevant to any reader-- all while remaining lighthearted and with very YA romcom vibes!

In short, it was just a beautifully told story about Teagan and Kay who meet when a pageant and a fan convention are held at the same hotel. They can't seem to keep away from each other even though they really ought to be focused on their owl goals: winning a pageant scholarship and writing contest!

Other thoughts:
One of Kay's other weekend goals includes asking others to use they/them pronouns for them, wear more masculine-presenting cosplay, and hopefully, kissing a girl for the first time. The inner thoughts surrounding these personal goals, and all of the dialogue around gender identity was really well done. The side characters were awesome friend groups who do amazing cheerleading and support for one another. This book shows a kinder side to pageants than what is portrayed in most books and movies.

I binge read this book in a day. The characters and the story is one I didn't want to put down even for a moment!

Oh my God. This story was so sweet and cute!! I found myself just rooting for the characters right up until the end! I highly recommend this book!

This book! This book is pure delight from start to finish. Kay and Teagan are so warm and wonderful as individual characters. Fierce in their own ways and soft in others and they complement each other so well. This is a perfect book for fans of Jenn Dugan and reminded me a lot of a cross between Verona Comics and Some Girls Do.
I can't recommend this highly enough.

This book! If you're looking for a fun, swoony, and tension-filled read--with a healthy dose of fandom love--this book is for you! It manages to capture the joy and drama of fandom and the complicated, messy truth of figuring out queer identity with an ultimate message of compassion--for others and yourself. The book gripped me from the start, and I flew through it in less than a day. I highly recommend it!

This book was such a beautiful, big, warm, queer hug. Both main characters (we love dual POV!!!) are so relatable and well fleshed-out, and the lessons learned by them are so incredibly valuable no matter who you are or what stage of life you occupy. I absolutely adored everything about this book! I work in fandom organizing and produce a queer book club and I cannot wait to plug this to everyone I know.

What a delightfully adorable book! I loved the setting, the cast of characters, the romance, the conflict, and the representation through and through. There’s something about a pageant called fandom convention dichotomy that really does a fantastic job of pitting two opposite worlds together to highlight contrasting lives. That did such a wonderful job of setting up Teagan’s and Kay’s backstories without repetitive detail.

I loved the breakdown of the good and bad of both worlds, the mature take on layered existences, and the open and honest discussion of queerness and the decision to wilfully exist without being out to the public.

I was oddly appreciative of the lack of main cast adult presence in the books because it allowed these children to mess up and fix their issues of their own accord and come to moral understandings through their own experience instead of through some wise old owl sermon.

A wonderful work of YA literature!

This is an excellent novel for smashing stereotypes. Beauty Queens, fangirls, these labels don't matter anymore. The One True Me and You shows that LGBTQ+ teens are present across all social groups, and that the sooner this becomes common knowledge, the better.

Loved it! The One True You and Me is a romantic romp with heart, humor, and such wonderfully unapologetic enthusiasm for fandom that reading it feels like a warm hug. I adored the complex friendships and how the two main characters are coming together from very different places (Beauty Pageants! Fandom!) and get to grow from meeting each other, with being a book where the beauty queen bashes the "nerd" or vice versa, which would have been such an easy trap to slip into. Instead, the characters approach each other and their respective worlds with so much loving care and respect. It made my heart so happy and I know there are so many teen readers who will hold this book close and read it over and over again.

This book is everything I look for in a good YA book. I loved seeing the development of the characters as they question themselves and what they want in life and who they are. The characters were so realistic as well, which made the book so much better. So many YA books have characters that are either too good or too bad to seem real but that isn't the case here and I enjoyed reading this book.

I really loved this YA rom-com about a pageant queen who falls for a nonbinary fan convention goer when their paths cross in the same hotel. There were a lot of things that I absolutely adored about this novel - it was a light romantic read that also didn't shy away from addressing things like bullying and homophobia.
The characters are well developed and I really connected to both Teagan and Kay and rooted for them for the whole story!

I absolutely adored this book from start to end! It has everything I'm looking for in a story and more. At points, this book reminded me of elements of Miss Congeniality and Whip It. Remi K. England is the Irishtea to my Kay. I am so excited to explore the world of fan fic and cons, and I can't wait for readers to go on their own journey as they read this book.

This was an absolute delight! I've read a lot of beauty pageant story lines of late--total coincidence--and this on is my favorite I do believe, focusing on inclusion and seeing the nuance behind these events. And of course, the fandom storyline was beautiful, as well as Kay's discovery and celebration of queerness. Highly recommend!

I ADORED this book. It was incredibly powerful to watch these two young women get drawn to one another, deeply bonded by their passions and experiences, while also navigating their own social pressures and coming out experiences. There were plenty of pageant and fandom shenanigans to keep things light, and I loved the supporting cast. This book would've meant a lot to me as a teen, and still does today!

Very cute!! I loved both of the main characters, they were both well fleshed out. The pacing was great and I was compelled by the story to keep reading. I definitely want more from this author.

This was a book I didn’t know I would love so much! I don’t know much about pageants or fandoms/fanfics but the characters were likable and the setting was intriguing. Beyond dealing with sexual orientation this book also addresses gender identity.

“The One True Me & You” by Remi K. England is a stunning geeky romance between fanfic author Kaylee and pageant queen Taegan. This lovely book is a love letter to all those who stay true to themselves and are open to explore beyond the unknown, to those open to take risks and discover wonders. This book has all the elements I enjoy in a book, and it explores lgbtq+ issues and struggles as well as the first sparks and butterflies when you know you have found a special someone. It is hard not to fall in love with the characters and this story. This was a warm hug to the heart. Highly recommend it.