The Affirmative Case for Us

About this book:

In the high-stakes world of competitive Lincoln-Douglas debate, Julian Reyes has built a fortress out of logic. A scholarship student at an elite boarding school, he survives by staying unmemorable—perfect flowsheets, clean rhetoric, arguments that leave no room for error. Then there's Marcus Vance: all silk ties and theatrical brilliance, openly gay and utterly unafraid, dismantling opponents with stories instead of spreadsheets. Marcus is everything Julian has spent years learning not to be. He's also the only person who makes Julian's carefully constructed walls feel like a cage.

When the tournament bracket pits them against each other—Affirmative versus Negative, structure versus spectacle—the rivalry ignites into something far more dangerous than a bid for a trophy. Between rounds in hotel prep rooms and midnight hallway encounters, the line between cross-examination and confession blurs. Julian argues for a world where everyone gets a baseline of dignity; Marcus lives like he already has it. And as the elimination rounds close in, Julian realizes the hardest debate he'll ever face isn't about universal basic income—it's whether he has the courage to finally speak his own truth.

*The Affirmative Case for Us* is a razor-sharp, tenderhearted rivals-to-lovers romance set in the insular, adrenaline-fueled subculture of high school forensics. For fans of *Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe* and *The Henna Wars*, this is a story about the arguments we rehearse, the ones we drop, and the single, terrifying moment we decide to go off-script.