Congratulations, the Best Is Over! // Essays

The beloved bestselling author ofHere for Itreturns with an all-new collection of heartening, deeply relatable, and laugh-out-loud essays about what happensafterhappily ever after.

After going viral “reading” the chaotic political news, having one-too-many awkward social encounters, and coming to terms with his intersecting identities, R. Eric Thomas finally knew who he was and where he was going. He was living his best life.

But then everything changed.

In this collection of insightful and hilarious essays, Thomas moves back to his perpetually misunderstood hometown of Baltimore (a place he never wanted to return, even to be buried) and behaving completely out of character. They say you can’t go home again, but what if you and home have changed beyond recognition? From attending his twenty-year high school reunion and discovering another person’s face on his name badge, to splattering an urgent care room with blood laThe Shining,to being terrorized by a plague of gay frogs who’ve overtaken his backyard, Thomas provides the nitty, and sometimes the gritty, details of wrestling with the life he thought he’d left behind while trying to establish a new one.

With wit, heart, and hope for the future,Congratulations, The Best Is Over!is the not-so-gentle reminder we all need that even when life doesn’t go according to plan, we can still find our way back home.

R. Eric Thomasis the bestselling author ofHere for It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America,a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and the YA novelKings of B’more, a Stonewall Honor book. Both books were also featured as Read with Jenna book-club picks onToday. He is also a television writer (Apple TV+’sDickinson, FX’sBetter Things), a Lambda Literary Award-winning playwright, and the long-running host of The Moth in Philadelphia. For four years, he was a senior staff writer atELLEonline, where he wrote the popular “Eric Reads the News” column.

• Publisher:Ballantine Books (August 8, 2023)
• Language:English
• Hardcover:240 pages
• ISBN-10:0593496264
• ISBN-13:9780593496268
• Item Weight:1.25 pounds
• Dimensions:5.5 x 0.59 x 8.25 inches