“The Foxhole Court” by Nora Sakavic

Next book from the Great Ace Book Box that I’m discussing is here! Alright so in the interest of not wasting time I’ll just be honest and say that I did not like this one. Mainly because I couldn’t stand any of the characters, but I will get into that.

So this book centers around Neil who is a high school student about to graduate. His only real interest in life is playing Exy, this lacrosse-esque sport that he can’t get enough of. Teased out throughout the novel is that Neil’s identity is essentially a fake. He and his mom were on the run his whole life, until she died. Then he was on his own for high school. Right before he graduates, he gets recruited by the Foxes a team that recruits only athletes that have been through some shit. Through this team, Neil is forced to confront his past and begin to find his place with his teammates.

Alright so yup I wasn’t the hugest fan of this book. Neil was just so angsty and such a whiner throughout the whole team, constantly talking about how his past forced him to not trust anyone and all that. But then he also doesn’t show any serious signs of psychological damage other than lying a lot. Like he doesn’t have panic attacks or do drugs or anything. Which feels fundamentally unrealistic to me. And just got pretty annoying to listen to.

Then there’s the rest of the team. Almost every single one of them were insane psychos constantly trying to hurt each other. Not to mention that one of them is openly homophobic and the gay one forcefully kisses Neil against his will multiple times. And another one drugs him without his consent. Don’t like any of that. And they never really get punished for any of these things, the team is still a “family” and protects each other and like whatever.

Honestly I can’t even really speak to other aspects of the book because I checked out partway through when I realized I didn’t give a shit about any of the characters. But the plot is overly convoluted and kinda not well organized. It ends with one of the teammates overdosing accidentally, but we don’t see any grief or closure from the characters. It feels like it was thrown in so that you’d read the next book in the series to find out or something. And there’s a lot of complicated stuff to Neil’s past and his relationship to his sport that just required much more of my concentration than I was willing to give.

So yeah, not a fan of this. I mean it’s free so can’t complain that much, but still, there’s much better free literature out there. Won’t be checking out the sequel or anything, but would still recommend signing up for the mailing list.