#niel josten aesthetic

[cheshire-choses]

Niel Josten

10 T-shir

[sweetandunholy]

“Remember this feeling. This is the moment you stop being the rabbit.”

A marvelous character exploration on a team composed of broken, angry people. Misfits in their society coming together to become one great, holy mess— with nothing in common with great passion for a sport and terrible pasts of crime coming to haunt them.

3.5/5 Stars Recommendation: This book is great but it is once more, not for everyone.

—First and foremost, I apologize for doing two reviews of this type of “good but for a niche crowd” books back to back, but I find out and binge read this book yesterday—

A book recommended for those who loved the Raven Cycle! Strongly character driven books with an assortment of original and complex characters taking the narrative along each character arc. This first book does not include a romantic subplot so those who are expecting that, at least in the first book, will find themselves disappointed. This is also for those who don’t mind a book that’s average in its writting style at best, and instead is fully worth it because of its plot. Unlike Stiefvater’s The Raven Cycle, the prose is poor and non-existing, but it is what the book has to say that matter.

Let’s get something super straight: I only read this book because of the name. To the point that fact is, I only found out about this book when googling J. Maas’es A Court of Thorns and Roses and getting in return: Frequently asked questions “What is the Foxhole Court?”. My immediate thoughts went over to our lovable fox Lucien from the aforementioned series and the fact it had “Court” written on it. I did not look up the cover, I did not look up reviews or the summary, and I instead I got myself a digital version and began reading.

Boy was I wrong.

In fact, the Foxhole Court is one of those books that I simply have no idea why I kept reading or why it had me so enthralled and glued to it page after page, but the matter of fact is it did. Being honest, it might’ve had something to do with the fact that when I was halfway through the introductions, I realized two things: 1) This book was going to be about a sport 2) All of the main characters were men. Which may or may have not lead me to the conclusion this was going to be gay, and that pleased me very much (Again, I was wrong, though the book does include LGBT+ characters AND I keep my hopes up for the next two books). But the truth is, the book did keep me reading, and the book did keep me hooked from beginning to end. So let’s get to it now, shall we?

The Foxhole Court is the story of 18 year old Neil Josten who for years has now lived as a runaway. Changing his appearance, name, aliases, cities, schools, there is nothing left from the person Neil was before he began a life on the run from the criminal mastermind known as “The Butcher” that his father is. Nothing left but one thing, his passion for the fictional sport known as Exy. An Exy star in the rise as a child, Neil left behind an friend old friend and is haunted when he comes back eight years later, ready to recruit him into Palmetto State Universtiy’s Exy foxes. Despite having no idea who he is, Kevin insists Neil come play with them and for the first time in his life takes a decision for him and decided he won’t leave him behind a second time.

The entire situation is bad, the team is high profile and the sports broadcasts are slamming his face all over the news as a new rising star in the world of Exy. Things are turning bad for him in every angle… But Neil isn’t the only fox with secrets. The magic of the Foxhole Court is in its members, a team filled with misfits, broken people who come from pasts or homes equally as broken as them who are given a second, third, fourth or even fifth opportunity through the sport. A place right where Neil belongs… If only his past and Kevin’s wasn’t beginning to come running after them.

The Foxhole Court to some extent is an easy read, in the sense that it is only 260 pages long and reads like fanfiction. And no, it doesn’t mean the main character is a self insert, a Gary Stu or loved by everyone (in fact, almost all the opposite), fought for or wanted by all men/women all around the glove. I haven’t done too much research as to confirm, but the writting certainly felt amateurish. Most of the book reads like this:

  He said. He asked. She said. She asked. Without much character interaction or emotion portrayed in the dialogue, for example. It isn’t exactly something terrible, but my point is there isn’t anything creative about the writing, or anything innovative and lyrical. However, Sakavic perfectly manages to write fully immersive characters and a great story that trails right behind them. If anything, the book only receives such a low rating from my part because of its quality as a book. It’s a great story, just not a greatly written one. Not to mention the book included more than a few incongruences that were nowhere near making sense, but that is a spoiler heavy rant I will go in detail below.

So without futher ado, spoilers below and my fanart sweet kids! (Click read more) and see you on the other side 😉

The Foxhole Court rants:

—The Amount of things that are just not doable, possible, or simply lack sense. This probably just adds to my earlier point of this reading like fan fiction. ➜ Bodies can not burn out with gasoline that fast, no matter how much you douse it in gasoline. Funerary homes need very, very powerful ovens to be able to reduce a body to ashes in a matter of hours. ➜ Niel would’ve never been able to burn that car and wait long enough for the body to become bones no less without any sort of authority finding him first. ➜ It’s extremely difficult wearing contacts for bed, or regular aesthetic contacts since they’re heavier and very uncomfortable. ➜ It is most likely impossible to make up a sport and have it played at university level,  professionally and with that much media coverage and rabid fans in simply 30 years. It’s chill that Exy is a big deal but, there’s no way it could be that huge in not even two generations.

➜ Andrew doing drugs and still playing professionally, is barely passable and very much anti regulation, but even if I were to let it slide, there’d be no way drugs could be done so recreationally because of a little something called antidoping. ➜ May be because I’m not a fan of sports, but how Exy worked was very difficult for me to follow. I’m glad they didn’t sit down and gave us an info dumpy explanation on how it worked (since some parts of the book, specifically the beginning was very info dumpy indeed) but that doesn’t mean trying to get it throughout the story made it any easier. I was really thinking hockey the entire time, and even that, it was probably wrong. Sin on me. ➜ Professional players don’t actually train without their trainers but you know, pass because its YA and it isn’t really actually trying to take itself too seriously. But like, there’s no way a coach would allow players to not get sleep to train instead but. Whatever at this point you know. ➜ Strapping knives to yourself in a contact sport…? Why, just why. ➜ Letting your players get on fist fights would get any coach fired. Straight up, even while I very much liked that one paragraph about letting them do it and then punishing them with laps. Loved it in fact, but still gonna point out how unrealistic it is. — All the characters were thrown into my face way too fast in very little time. I’m talking about Andrew’s crew. The characters merged one into the other in the beginning, I had no idea who was who and I was very confused regarding their dynamics and why Neil seemed to know or not know some and I was just very confused throughout Neil’s entire arrival to the state. — The rest of the team was introduced correctly and I had no further problems with them though. — Despite the previous points though, the book rather felt like… A huge build up? To the rest of the series? Instead of like an actual book with a plot that you can say has an introduction, a knot and then a climax before ending. It’s sort of stuck in the entire introduction portion and laying basis. — No, I’m not counting the entire Riko drama or Yakuza fallout the plot of this group as that also simply counts as introduction and establishing pasts and dynamics. It was well done and I enjoyed it a lot, but that still doesn’t count for even little semblance of a formal plot. — The lack of research. Just- The overall, noticeable, and practically tangible lack of research. That’s like author’s homework number one.

Now let it be known, I absolutely love this book. I really do, and I’m certainly extremely excited to read the rest of the series. It doesn’t mean I am not entitled to be critical of it. I like it, a lot, it has flaws, many. It’s that simple. The admirable thing about it is that its mistakes are not making my like it any less and the author deserves kudos on that basis alone. Thank you.

The Foxhole Court PRAISE:

Now onto the less coherent and smart part of this review, I’m just gonna fangirl it out. Excuse me.

— I’m a sucker for psychopaths, abusers, bullies and specially when taken to a super edgy extent. I recognize he was unnecessarily edgy but that made me love him all the better. Andrew is my new book husband holy fuck. I can’t explain just how much I hate him and that makes me love him so much. — This book went from 0 to straight up 100 in no time and holy fuck was that was amazing. Specially considering I didn’t read the back part or any summaries and I had no idea what the book was about in the least. God fucking bless me. — I came in sure this was gonna be gays, give me my gays — I came in for the Kevin x Neil considering the set up, but I’m pretty fucking sure we’re currently leaning towards Neil x Andrew. I will hold this as my ot3 no matter how many people I offend 😎 — Halfway through the book I was mentally whining about how every character felt so faraway from Niel. I’m used to very pure and unbreakable bonds forming between characters, specially male characters, that I enjoy a lot and look forwards too, and it almost made me feel… Jealous. About how most other character received that but not Neil. It was then when I realized that was exactly Niel’s mindset and I just really want to praise the author for conveying his feelings in such a way. I was able to feel all of his pain in practically first person. — Neil’s meticulous point of view felt very real and raw, I found myself rooting for him the entire novel, and I usually have a terrible time doing that for such morally headstrong characters. — Andrew is literally a combination of Ronan Lynch and Joseph Kavinsky. My favorite Raven cycle character and my most hated Raven cycle character respectively. That drew me in like a moth drawn to a flame. Considering how needy I feel of said three book husbands. — What the fuck, Andrew is my new husband.

And last but not least, some fanart of my ot3 because no one will ever be able to convince me otherwise. Foot straight to the crotch for you, Neil. I headcanon the interactions between these three and my heart simply flutters. Don’t judge me, thank u

        [Review] The Foxhole Court + Fanart “Remember this feeling. This is the moment you stop being the rabbit.” A marvelous character exploration on a team composed of broken, angry people.