Congratulations, The Best Is Over!: Essays

by R. Eric Thomas

The beloved bestselling author of Here for It presents a collection of heartening, thoughtful, and laugh-out-loud essays about the lifelong search for community and returning home.

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 is ready to live his best life--or, if not, at least his best-ish life.

Now, in this collection of insightful and hilarious essays, Thomas finds himself doing things completely out of character, starting with moving back to his perpetually misunderstood hometown of Baltimore. 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 à la The Shining, to being terrorized by a plague of gay frogs who've overtaken his backyard, Thomas shares the nitty, and sometimes gritty, details of wrestling with your past life while in the middle of 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.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Memoir, Humor, Audiobook, LGBT, Short Stories

241 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 8, 2023

About the author

R. Eric Thomas (he/him) is a national bestselling author, playwright, and screenwriter. His books include, Here for It, or How to Save Your Soul in America, which was featured as a Read with Jenna pick on NBC's Today, Reclaiming Her Time: The Power of Maxine Waters, co-authored with Helena Andrews-Dyer, the YA novel Kings of B’more, a 2023 American Library Association Stonewall Honor book, and the essay collection Congratulations, the Best Is Over!

For his playwriting, Eric has won the Barrymore Award for Best New Play, the Dramatist Guild Lanford Wilson Award, the Lambda Literary Award, and was a finalist for the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award. On screen, he wrote for the Peabody Award-winning series Dickinson on AppleTV+ and Better Things on FX and is currently developing multiple film and television projects, including a half hour comedy based on his memoir. Off the page, Eric is also the long-running host of The Moth StorySlams in Philadelphia, and has been heard multiple times on The Moth Radio Hour.

Reviews

[R. Eric Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think it would be hilarious if I rated this 1-star, as a bit. “Not for me!”

[Traci Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I assumed this book would be funny but was taken aback by how much heart it is, and I mean that in the best possible way. Thomas has grown so much as an author in the last few years. I have to say the humor is there 100% and the observations are astute. I was surprised with how tender this book is. The writing on hope, survival, grief, and anxiety is just so good and relatable.

[Janai · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book made me want to work at a cemetery (compliment)

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly, I read this because I was baffled that a man who said he grew up in Baltimore could get so much wrong about the city and state of Maryland in his last book.

In this one he admits he has no sense of Maryland geography, unsurprisingly, but he also seems to have zero interest in learning it.

Frankly I still find him baffling. He writes about about himself, his husband, his parents, Baltimore, the outer suburbs he moves, his lack of friends, his inability to make friends, how no one wants to come to get togethers he throws but with such little introspection it’s like he’s writing a really flat novel, not about his own life.

There is no sense of depth or urgency or thought behind anything that happens. He briefly reflects on choosing an apartment that advertises itself as being removed from Baltimore while still being in Baltimore but only on the most surface way. He decides to move to a part of Maryland that is extremely conservative which seems like an odd choice for a Black man in an interracial relationship with a Presbyterian minister but only briefly mentions that fact and does not really share why they decided to move there anyway. It didn’t seem close to where his husband worked either.


I read this whole book and have no idea who this man is or why he made the choices he did. I know he really does not seem to like Baltimore or Maryland and only under duress moved back but not really why he doesn’t like it. He talks about how his parents live near where they filmed The Wire but so does basically anyone living in Baltimore. What is where his parents live like? Why do they live there? He talks about going to the reunion of his fancy private school and they gave him a name tag with someone else’s face on it but it was a very superficial story. Why is he sharing it? Is it supposed to illuminate something about his life? His time at the school? I felt like he talked in circles and never actually said anything.

He spends more time talking about tapas than anything personal. I feel like there are parts that are supposed to be funny but I couldn’t find them.

I’m perplexed he has made a habit of writing personal essays. This felt flat and unfinished. It didn’t even feel like a book about a real person, much less someone writing about themselves.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read R. Eric Thomas's first essay collection, Here For It, early 2020, right before all the sh*t hit the fan, so to speak. Perhaps that's why I didn't quite appreciate him as much as I do now. Don't get me wrong, I loved the HECK out of that book, as I express in my review. But is it possible I couldn't know just how essential his writing is to my psyche -- and the WORLD -- as I do now? I think yes. Even without all the Whitney Houston and Sister Act Part II references that were found in the first.

In this second collection of memoir essays, Thomas pulls off quite the balancing act -- simultaneously making me giggle uncontrollably and sigh at his profundity. First for the giggling: Thomas's humor seems to be my absolute favorite kind. It's laced with pop culture references, sassy (one-sided) banter, and speaking aloud the things we all think but haven't had the courage to say. I just cannot get enough of his humor. It's smart, quick, and leaves me chortling.

But secondly, and perhaps more affectingly, is his unique ability to pinpoint the exact feelings of a moment, moments of nostalgia, moments of upheaval, moments of marriage, and moments of, yes, the pandemic. I haven't read a lot of work that tackles the bizarre whirlwind we have lived through in the past three years, but Thomas does it so gracefully. He captures the fear, the uncertainty, the boredom, the anxiety, the humor, the lack of humor, all so well. As a man whose debut book came out into the world weeks before lockdown, he has intimately lived through all these feelings, just as the rest of us have.

I don't know, I feel like I'm not doing this book justice, but please just do yourselves a favor and read this one when it comes out next month. Frankly, R. Eric Thomas is one of the best writers of our age, and I'm so glad to be a reader while he is out here making books.

[JR · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was terrible. I’m glad this was only 200 pages, so I didn’t have to read any more of this. It was so bad.

I’m not sure who the author thought he was. You write a column for Elle magazine. You aren’t that important. Why am I supposed to care about living in the suburbs from Baltimore and dealing with the death of your partners dad? I was so confused. It was just a regular gay couple doing regular couple/life things. I’m more exciting than this guy! Why was this a book?

This was labeled as comedy essays and I have to say I didn’t laugh at all during any of this. I didn’t get it at all. The writing was easy to read which was the only small fraction of this I enjoyed. Awful. 1 and a half stars.

[Kaitlin Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This essay collection is just as funny as the first one (the part about the gay frogs took me out) but it’s also quite emotional! I just loved it.

[jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

This made me laugh out loud and cry in public in equal measure. What more do you want in a book? 5 stars.

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars. I found this not as engaging as his last book. It felt like that thing where someone did a good thing and then we make them do the same thing again but give them less time to do it. There is a pretty limited time frame he is pulling from here, the collection feels scattered even though what happens in it all happens in a few years. I'm a big believer that you really do need time to process things before you do this kind of writing about them and we don't get that here. Give Thomas a little time to breathe, it's hard out here.

[Moony Eliver · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. This was fantastic. Hilarious yes, but much more — also vulnerable and insightful, with scenes that will stick with me. "Jericho" had me holding my breath with tears in my eyes, and "Rainbow Connection" brought the tears from laughter instead. But there isn't a dry essay in the bunch. Highly recommended.

[laurel [the suspected bibliophile] · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm kind of embarrassed that I hit the delay hold button so often on Libby.

This is fun, funny, heartfelt and filled with so much depth and humor and realness (and mental health but in a warm-hug-I-see-you way if that makes sense?).

Anywho, highly recommend.

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A new collection of humorous essays from pop culture journalist R. Eric Thomas. Some of these were better than others for me but there were definitely parts that made me laugh out loud (the Oprah's favorite things chapter) and were very relatable (the chapter on the joys and pitfalls of working from home), etc.

Good on audio read by the author and recommended for fans of authors like Samantha Irby. Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and @prhaudio for early digital and audio copies in exchange for my honest review!

[Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’d give it six stars if I could!

[Camelia Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Are all gay men funny? At first, there was David Sedaris, and now, R. Eric Thomas. I never heard of this author until I stumbled upon Congratulations, the Best is Over!. It’s a memoir of sorts, hilarious and sincere. R. Eric Thomas, born to middle class black parents, grew up in a poor neighborhood in Baltimore, went to a progressive private school and was admitted to Columbia University. Like many educated millennials, he struggled to find his footing, but eventually got a job he likes–writing full time for Elle magazine.

The author writes largely about personal struggles. What I like most is that he presents his person as a whole–gay, black, in an inter-racial relationship, educated, millennials, extrovert, writer, and middle class, instead of just some characteristics. One can see that regarding Black American and homosexual experience, there is injustice but also progress.

[Leigh Kramer · Rating 4 out of 5]

If R. Eric Thomas writes it, I will read it. After loving his first memoir-in-essays Here For It, I was excited to see how he’d follow it up. Thomas explores returning home to Baltimore and what it's like to start over and find new community. This is extremely relevant to my interests as someone who moved back to my hometown three years ago and these aspects resonated a lot.

This collection takes on a number of topics, from depression to COVID-19. My favorite essays turned out to be about Eric visiting his grandparents’ graves and one about the paperwork and logistics of death after his father-in-law died unexpectedly. While I do find the author to be funny, a lot of the humor didn’t land with me this time around. It might have worked better if I’d listened to the audiobook. Regardless, this was a great essay collection and I really enjoyed it a lot, just not quite as much as I was expecting to.


Content notes: death of father-in-law (heart attack), aquamation, depression, anxiety, systemic racism, discussion of Black people killed by police and others, COVID-19, January 6 insurrection, laceration from glass, blood, seasickness, ageism, past death of grandparents (including stroke and heart attack), alcohol, diet culture, anti-fat bias, ableist language, mentions of father-in-law’s cancer treatment

[Kate (kate_reads_) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book feels like going out to dinner with a good friend you haven’t seen in a while. You sit down and say tell me what’s going on with you! And suddenly you look up after a long night of laughs and more serious topics and suddenly, somehow, it’s midnight. R Eric Thomas feels like my friend after listening to these essays and I can’t wait for more from him. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the free ebook and PRH Audio for the free audiobook.

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, this was a delight! Fans of David Sedaris will find a new vein of gold to mine here. I listened to the audiobook and appreciated hearing these read by the author – it really helped underscore his voice. Like Sedaris, Thomas has a talent for observation and manages to pull in the right details to paint a clear (and often funny) mental picture. I think my brain has officially over-written its vision of Oprah's Favorite Things show with Thomas's version for all eternity.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

R. Eric Thomas is always such a delight to spend time with.

His first essay collection had more variety in terms of material, but this one is almost as good and while less laugh-out-loud funny, it’s just as clever and intriguing.

Thomas is great at transcending the thing that bogs down most memoir-style essay collections, which is that no one is inherently interesting enough to hold the reader’s attention through an entire book s worth of autobiographical essays. Thomas skirts this problem beautifully by couching his own experiences in broader context that is both more interesting and more relatable to the reading public.

But in the end, he keeps our attention for two reasons: He’s a gifted writer who blends humor and sentiment, and he’s just a very likable guy.

*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*

[CJ Alberts]

Popcorn essays before bed. Liked it tho!! Millennial queer humor at times lol but heartfelt

[Christopher Febles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poor Baltimore. Bad rap. I’ve visited multiple times, Camden Yards is my second-favorite ballpark, and I’ve even stayed in a lovely bed and breakfast with my wife not long before we were married. R. Eric Thomas paints his self-portrait in this setting as something of a reluctant rebirth, a starting over in the city that caused him such agita. He shares his thoughts about building a new home, adjusting to a new therapist, and trying to get by during a pandemic. He doesn’t trash the place as the media often does, but I could hear him sigh in frustration at times.



Thomas writes well, expressing himself clearly and honestly. The style is conversational and fun: he’s liberal with the exclamation points, he calls us “honey” when making his point, and he still makes it work. There are a lot of descriptions of everyday things, and the guy has an eye for décor, since he has some pointed opinions about the setup of his new home. Once again, the Sex and the City references went right over my head, as did a few pop culture references, but mostly I grasped the concept. Not his fault I live under a rock.

Great, funny detail here about funny situations, or maybe he turns tragic situations into funny ones. It takes a lot of skill to turn a story about nearly chopping off his hand with a wine glass into a goofy adventure. And me, I might have up and moved if frogs took over my backyard. I don’t mess with biblical signs; I’m OUT.



Thomas also addresses his status as a Black man in a city with its police issues. I saw the fear and frustration as he watched stories about the Black Lives Matter movement, and he really had me worried when his mother was locked out of her apartment. I have to say I wasn’t surprised, but I’m glad it worked out OK.

I did feel that while the book is billed as something of an emotional memoir, there was something held back. He tells us about his issues with his past, his insecurity about marriage, his family background, with more of a factual take than I’d expected. Maybe it was the way I read it, and I don’t read many of these essay collections, but to me his description of his past insecurities seemed incomplete. Other memoirs, like Samantha Irby’s Quietly Hostile: Essays or Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner went into more depth of feeling. But Thomas does a nice job of showing me how it feels for him to “come home again.” His last chapter is heartfelt and creative.

He writes well, and it’s a nice, entertaining memoir. Huh – maybe essay collections are my thing, after all. Enjoy!

[Mark Fajet · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is funny. On top of that, the book has many essays that are “full of heart”. I put that in quotes because I plagiarized it from some other reviewer. In my defense, I’ve read and reviewed so many comedic books of essays in the past year that t was only a matter of time before I’d get lazy and/or run out of words. Also, my reviews typically focus on how funny a book of comedic essays is so I’m not used to evaluating it for more than that! We all have things that we enjoy and look for and comedy is something I personally seek out. I enjoy finding things that I think are funny and sharing this things with others. Also, I don’t owe anybody a detailed, original review. I believe I can steal words from other reviews, especially if those stolen words are actually just a common phrase. Who knows? Maybe if I didn’t see their review before writing this one, that phrase would have popped in my head on its own. In the end, I implore you, the reader, to know that there is a real person behind this review and that person isn’t a professional writer being paid to come up with their own words. So, please, give me grace and go read the other review I guess.

Anyways, some essays made me audibly chuckle at times while other essays made me think “aw” while others made me think “hmm yes that is good life advice to keep in mind.”

P.S. I actually looked back at that other review and they didn’t even say “full of heart!” They said “how much heart it has.” After all this, I have achieved vindication.

[Deborah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a straight, conservative, white Southerner, so I am fairly certain that R. Eric Thomas did not envision me as part of his intended audience when he wrote Congratulations, The Best Is Over! However, when Anne Bogel recommended this book of essays in her Modern Mrs. Darcy Summer Reading Guide, I requested and received an ARC from the publisher and discovered that Thomas is very funny, at times laugh-out-loud and insist-on-reading-to-my-husband so, as in this passage about a visit to his childhood church:

But enough people approached me like a total stranger that I was like, "Is this shade?" I would have respected that. But no; they really didn’t know who I was! I would tell them, "It’s me! Eric! Standing here next to my parents, whom I resemble, and my brother, also in the same genetic neighborhood." And their eyes would widen and their mouths would fall open and they’d say, "Eric?! I didn’t even recognize you!'

As funny as he is, though, Thomas's true strength in this collection, and the element which bridged all of our disparate demographics, is the way in which his love for his husband David shines through, whether they are trying to outrun hypothermia on their engagement hike (in "You Said Outside, but You Ain't That Outside"); "shout-enunciating" at each other in the midst of a medical emergency (in "Oh My, This Soup's Delicious, Isn't It?"); making the dreaded move to the suburbs, with its screaming foxes requiring exorcism (in the titular essay); or negotiating different perspectives on household furnishings (in "This Is Wudder"):

After David and I moved in together, the question that always arose in our house was, "Is this clutter or is this a treasured personal artifact that Eric is heartlessly trying to donate to Goodwill?"

(By the way, Eric, honey, after almost 40 years with my husband, I can tell you that will ALWAYS be the question.)

I do want to be brutally honest with my fellow readers (because, after all, isn't that the purpose of a review?). Some of Thomas's descriptions of his life experiences as a gay black male in America made me uncomfortable, so if you are looking for 100% fun and fluff, this may not be the book for you. On the other hand, if you can take a little poking at yourself and your fellow white suburbanites in exchange for the opportunity to read a collection of warm-hearted and humorous slices of life, I encourage you to grab a couple of your favorite cupcakes and sit down with Congratulations, The Best Is Over! And don't forget to read the Acknowledgments; you won't want to miss the after-party.

I received a free copy of Congratulations, The Best Is Over! through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Kelsey (Kelseylovesbooks) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another enjoyable essay collection from R. Eric Thomas. This one felt a bit more serious than his first, perhaps because it focuses quite a bit on adjusting to life in the early stages of the pandemic, the struggles of making friends as an adult, and loss. Because of all that, it didn’t feel as funny to me as Here For It, but there were highly relatable moments.

I received an ARC of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had no idea who R. Eric Thomas was....so I really went into this blind. This collection of essays was something different from my norm. Some were more entertaining than others. Some were also more thought provoking.

I appreciated his wit but what I enjoyed the most were the bits where he'd show who he really was. I loved the "real" moments...I think I wanted more of that. So 3 stars.

[Ashley Melson · Rating 5 out of 5]

R. Eric Thomas always manages to write in such a way that is so relatable yet exactly precise. He makes you laugh out loud and cry actual tears in the same paragraph, but in the best way. I’ll read anything he ever writes.

[Anna Bassett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would read a phone book if it was narrated by R. Eric Thomas!!!

[Kari Yergin]

Excerpts:

I saw another message underneath. It said, “I see you. The future is coming. Keep going.” The five year plan was hope.

My whole life in Baltimore was reading. My parents would take us to the library every week as kids and I’d borrow the maximum number of items allowed. Because it’s not hoarding if it’s books. As I grew older I’d spend hours browsing the shelves and holed up in a corner escaping to new worlds.

(The part about getting and being married)

I was grateful for the emotion, grateful to the play for giving me such big feelings in a way that made sense. I’d spent so long feeling bottled up and weighed down, afraid of the feelings that were crowding my life. Finally something connected.
“I cried!” wanting to express how deeply
The musical had affected me and desperate to have a moment I wasn’t walking around this world all neutral. I want to be unguarded and open because theater, like joy, like life, is ephemeral and I won’t pass this way again. I am not made smaller by the big feelings. They’re the things that remind me I’m alive. They are the things that, when I am in darkness, remind me that I’m searching for the light. They aren’t always the things that I need but I think that inside them, the happiness, the sadness, the joy, the grief there is truth. I just want to get to the truth. I write to get to the truth. I watch to see the truth. I go to the theater to find the truth. I laugh and I cry and I gasp and at the end I clap and I clap and I clap until my hands hurt.


Sometimes the way that I help in our relationship is by talking through logistics. Sometimes the way I help is by asking “could spending money change the situation?!” So after a few days of watching him dog for hours, I came out on the porch and called, “do you want to get a backhoe?” That’s my marriage advice. When times get hard, rent some heavy machinery.

Everyone else’s father is inscrutable to me. And this isn’t a knock against other people’s fathers. I just don’t think we’re set up as a society to see a lot of men in their complexity. And a lot of men aren’t willing or able to show their complexity.

How much of your life is a mundane mystery to other people? We’ll share the events of our days over dinner or call our parents to update them on the highlights. But there are all the little details and I reaction’s that fill in the cracks in our lives. Who are the ppl in your phone address book and emails?
What are the appts in your calendar and the small notes that make sense only to you? What is the song that’s wafting through your head? What about the ppl you see every day, cashiers and fellow commuters and neighbors who might realize they miss you but never really know what happened?

In the unimaginable 😃 and, well the unimaginable. 😢

[Ava Mattis · Rating 3 out of 5]

a good reflection about just existing where you are, even when the world now often doesn’t require us to be anywhere physically. definitely made me laugh out loud a couple times while listening, especially the creation of the gay frog bar/pond in the front yard (this was especially funny after discussing the feminization of frogs due to pesticide discharges into the env for the 1000th time in class)

“for a moment, I don’t have to walk around the world all neutral”

for all y’all who know my funeral playlist: I would also like to be aquamated now. please take this goodreads review as my formal consent

[Andrea Frazee · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 audiobook

[Kari Ann Sweeney · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of essays is very humorous yet also thought-provoking. I appreciated his vulnerability and humility. As with most essay collections I related to some stories more than others, but the writing kept me turning the pages.