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Conventionally Yours is a 3-star rating for me. For most of this book, I was feeling maybe a rounded-up 3.5-star rating, but then that ending became really dragging, so this is where my mind is at after just finishing it.

In broad strokes, this book is pretty good. You got two rivals who dabble in this trading card game, akin to Magic the Gathering, who go on a road trip to the big tournament, and discover who they really are along the way. Although I wish the dialogue could’ve been freshened up to sound more natural, I didn’t find the progression of Conrad’s and Alden’s relationship to be unrealistic. They were in close-quarters together for long amounts of time, opened up to each other, and were understanding and compassionate about their families, fears, and insecurities. Surprisingly, it was after they’d had their first kiss that I slowly started to get annoyed.

After their first kiss and for a bunch of kisses afterward, Conrad and Alden, for some reason, became really dodgy about giving their new relationship a proper label. The main reason for that being only one of them could win the tournament and go pro and both Alden and Conrad had high stakes on the line (“my entire life hinges on this children’s card game� is a sentiment I’d never thought I’d see outside of the Yu-Gi-Oh! universe lol). When they came to trying to communicate their feelings about what their relationship would be after the tournament’s outcome, it still felt indirect and unsatisfactory. In the Duelist Kingdom arc of the first season of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Joey and Yugi kept it to a very simple “we’re both going to give it our all in a game we both love, even with high stakes, there’ll be no hard feelings to whoever comes out the winner.� (Can you guys tell I’ve been rewatching Yu-Gi-Oh? Lol) It was during these last few chapters spanning the tournament that I really felt like these twenty-something-year-old characters were acting more like teenagers. Conrad gets really self-sabotagey about it and I’m just over here being like, “oh boy, American individualism strikes again.�

Segueing into a bit of a tangent here, a big part of Conrad’s story is that he’s been kicked out of his home, cut off from his family, and basically facing homelessness if he doesn’t win the tournament and go pro. Now, I’m not gonna get into the reasoning behind that super-high-risk decision based around a children’s card game because I kind of understood it—he had nothing left to lose and he wanted to give a shot doing what he loved. Really, I’m gonna go into this “poor people don’t want charity or pity� trope (darn you, Adam Parrish). I have... complicated feelings about that, you can say. My family and financial situations are weird and fluctuating—I’ve been on both sides of the coin. Personally, I don’t like this trope because I don’t relate to it, but I can totally see that this could vary from person to person. It’s a matter of personal pride—but, in my mind, this can teeter dangerously into arrogance, stubbornness, and hubris. There was this bit in the tournament chapters, where Alden gives Conrad information about his next opponent which helps Conrad win, but then Conrad goes into this internal spiral about if it was really his win or if he just won because Alden helped him. And that’s where I got really annoyed with American individualism (maybe it’s cuz we’re in a pandemic right now where a bunch of dumbasses refuse to wear masks to protect others that’s making me stew about this, lol) because it’s not “oh, I didn’t do this all by myself, therefore, it doesn’t count,� it should be “I won with the help of my teammate who filled in my gaps.�

It’s definitely true that certain hobbies are more expensive than others and Conrad makes note of that, but I just wish he had less of this implicit bootstraps mindset and more of a there’s-no-I-in-team way of thinking.

Which beautifully segues into another point I’d like to address—the lack of the side characters. I was really interested in Payton and Jasper, but to make sure that the two main leads are alone together, they’re cast to basically nonexistence for most of the book. That’s not a bad thing in and of itself, but it felt really awkward to read this ham-fisted reason for why Jasper had to ditch the road trip out of nowhere. I think what could’ve remedied this is more of the card game group before the road trip. We get like less than a chapter really before the road trip and the tournament is introduced. If we’d gotten more before then, I think it really could’ve established what Conrad and Alden used to think of each other, featured more of Jasper and Payton, and the whole group’s dynamic with one another—more found family, if you will, less individualism (especially since Jasper’s getting his own book in 2021? well... okay then).

The tournament chapters were really dragging and the very ending felt too neat for my liking (I’d sooner believe that their group could turn into full-time YouTubers than get offered jobs as a prolific game company, but... ¯\_(�)_/¯). I liked the road trip chapters better, where Conrad and Alden were opening up to each other and noticing the little intricacies that they kept tabs on. I would also say that I’d have liked more details on the in-universe card game, but I’ll cut some slack on that since coming up with a whole new card game sounds like a lot of work and the bits we do have are pretty nice, lol XD

So, yeah, overall, this book was fairly solid and fairly readable. I think it’s a combination of rewatching Yu-Gi-Oh! and missing road trips that I liked this book more than I probably would've otherwise, lol~ I am really interested in this upcoming Jasper sequel, so I’m definitely keeping my eye out for that!