I'm a sucker for a good athlete story, and this book went above and beyond for me, throwing in broken and flawed characters I fell in love with right out the gate.WHAT I LIKED---------------- Exy. A fictional sport crafted more than well enough to be understood by the reader and inspire excitement for game scenes.- Pacing of backstory release. Sakavic hit my perfect balance of teasing out the backstory for the characters and releasing tidbits at a rate that kept me thirsting for more.- The characters. Everyone is broken, creating an entirely dysfunctional sports team. This book isn't about saving them, it's about survival - emotional and psychological more than physical. - The writing style. Sakavic doesn't waste words, much like her characters who have little use for superfluous conversation.- The overall cohesiveness of the tale. As a whole, I just really enjoyed this book.- Diversity of cast. The sport is co-ed, the team is captained by a woman, with two other women in key positions. One of the players is openly gay, but the book doesn't fall into any cliched "gay sports challenges" -- Nicky is a character not the "gay rights representative sports guy". A couple of the players are mixed race. I enjoyed reading a book where the main characters weren't all white and where the sport was truly co-ed.WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE------------------ Sakavic has one character with much less development than the others, making his storyline less impactful than it should have been.I highly recommend this story to anyone who enjoys dark sports narratives, flawed but surviving characters, and complex character relationships. NOTE: This is the first of 3 books, and the main narrative is told over the whole 3. If you go into the first book thinking you're going to get the whole tale, you'll be disappointed. Instead, know you are getting Neil's "Journey to belonging", and you'll finish satisfied and still wanting more. Much like many of the reviews I've read since I finished this book, I picked it up without any real expectations. It was available for free and looked mildly interesting, but it definitely surprised me and made me incredibly glad I took that chance.Neil Josten has been running from his past for as long as he can remember. When his skill in a sport known as Exy get the attention of a recruiter at Palmetto State University, however, he has a decision to make: keep running or take some time to pursue playing the sport he loves. And the fact that the team's new star player is someone that he knew in his past seems like a point in the favor of either decision.The way Nora Sakavic builds the world and slowly introduces the characters is something that really keeps the reader engaged (at one point, I sat down to read a chapter and got up nearly 10 chapters later) and demonstrates a skill in storytelling that I haven't seen in a while. One has to suspend some disbelief to accept aspects of the story (I just settled on the idea that it takes place in the near future to explain some of the differences in societal norms and regulations), but Sakavic makes it very easy to do so. For a book that is touted as having m/m romance elements, it is a bit light on that front (they're mostly hinted at in this book), but I expect they will continue to build in the future books in the series.
Do You like book The Foxhole Court (2013)?
I kind of have no idea what I'm reading with this one, but it's compelling nonetheless. Very odd.
—Sam
Unfinished ending and the author takes too long to write the sequels.
—drene
Ugh. Had to DNF. Should have read Julio's review first!
—Keiah10
This book is just freaking amazing. Read it.
—Nichole05
