The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Deaver, Mason. I Wish You All the Best. PUSH, Scholastic, Inc. 2019.

I Wish You All the Best begins with Ben de Backer, a nonbinary teenager living in Goldsboro, North Carolina, working up the courage to come out to their parents as nonbinary. Ben asks their Mom and Dad to be called by their preferred pronouns, which are they/them/theirs, rather than being referenced in relation to their assigned male gender at birth. Ben’s request is met with violence and misunderstanding, and their parents kick them out of the house into the cold winter night.

Ben is saved from the cold by their sister Hannah, who left home 10 years prior with no notice or communication. She brings Ben to live with her and her husband Thomas in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the two of them set Ben up with a new school, new clothes, and a new therapist named Dr. Taylor. Ben is still in shock after their parents’ violent reaction to their gender-identity and requires multiple sessions with Dr. Taylor before they begin to open up about their emotions and thoughts.

On Ben’s first day at North Wake High School, they meet Nathan Allan, who is instructed to show Ben around school. Ben decides not to come out to Nathan, but despite their big secret, the two begin to forge a close bond. Nathan introduces Ben to his friends Sophie and Meleika. Ben wavers in their ability to be completely emotionally available to their new friends, based primarily on the status of their mental health and the amount of support they receive and accept from Dr. Taylor, Hannah, and Thomas. After Ben suffers a handful of panic attacks, they decide to begin mood-stabilizing medication to help treat their diagnosis of depression and anxiety.

During their therapy sessions with Dr. Taylor, Ben begins to expand their ability to talk about their parents and their complicated feelings about them as they feel both love and hate for their Mom and Dad. One day, they come across a missed Facebook message from their Mom asking to meet and talk things over. Ben decides to meet them in a restaurant, not telling Hannah their plan, but bringing Nathan as a secret witness. The meeting becomes very sour and conflicted very quickly, with Ben’s Dad becoming aggressive and authoritative, and both him and Ben’s Mom continually undermine Ben’s attempt to set boundaries and hold their parents accountable for their abusive actions. Ben promptly leaves the restaurant, feeling angry and let down.

A few days after that encounter, Ben agrees to be part of an art show hosted by their favorite teacher, Mrs. Liu. While happily showing their work, which includes a large yellow painting of Nathan, Ben’s parents show up unannounced. Through their words, through continually misgendering Ben, and by ignoring Ben’s request for them to leave, they make Ben extremely angry. Suddenly, despite Ben’s best efforts to keep her away to avoid a public outburst of familial conflict, Hannah sees their parents and starts a yelling match, calling them out for hurting herself and Ben in their youth. With tensions running high and their yelling attracting unwanted attention, Ben, who is beginning to feel panicked, decides to leave the scene with Nathan, rejecting their parents command to come home and saying directly to their parents, “I am not your son” (255).

After the fight with their parents, Ben’s emotional state is incredibly damaged, and they do not leave their bed for a week and neglect to take their mood stabilizing medication. Hannah, Nathan, Mariam, and some other friends begin to worry about Ben’s mental health and reach out to them to offer support in various ways, most of which Ben rejects. After a week of recluse behavior, Hannah makes a nonnegotiable appointment for Ben with Dr. Taylor, and upon arriving there, Ben invites Hannah into the appointment. The two explore Ben’s feelings of abandonment created by Hannah’s departure ten years prior, and Dr. Taylor creates a space for the siblings to say things to one another they previously felt emotionally unequipped to say. Directly after the therapy session, Hannah privately discloses to Ben the true reason she left home so abruptly. Ben learns that having a pregnancy scare with her boyfriend, Hannah’s Mom told Hannah’s Dad, who reacted with violence to Hannah’s choice to have sex, striking her and calling her a “whore.” Hearing the truth, Bens sympathy for their sister mends their tension and they resolve to support each other in their mutual rejection of their parents’ abusive tendencies.

On a very special day for Ben, their friend Mariam arrives in Raleigh to speak about being nonbinary and about the need for queer youth safe spaces at Project Safe Space, allowing the two friends to meet in person for the first time. Mariam is extremely supportive of Ben’s relationship with Nathan and encourages them to trust their instinct to come out to Nathan as nonbinary. Before attending Mariam’s speech together, Ben comes out to Nathan, who responds apologetically and empathetically, sorry for having accidentally misgendered Ben for the entirety of their relationship. Ben feels held and loved by Nathan’s reaction to their secret. The next day, with no desire to go to the school prom, Nathan creates an alternative private event for Ben on Nathans roof, where Nathan professes his love for Ben, to which Ben responds with the same sentiment. The pair share their first kiss on the roof and officially begin their romantic partnership. The epilogue reveals that their partnership has not only endured the summer, but will continue with them both moving to LA, Nathan pursuing a university degree and Ben starting a new project with Mariam about being nonbinary. Ben feels held by their community, emotionally stable, confident about their identity as nonbinary, and equipped to help other youth like themselves in their journey to self-determination and self-love.