I might say some very intelligent things about the novel "The Foxhole Court" by Nora Sakavic. I might give some very interesting and honest critique, pointing out the book's flaws alongside its flourishes. The most telling thing I think I can really say about this book, though, and the rest of the series that follows after it, is that for the last week, I have accomplished, essentially, nothing. I have laid aside all responsibilities and friendships, I have disappeared as a human being with a functioning mind and altering, competing desires. I have, instead, become nothing but a host body in which the lives of the characters of "The Foxhole Court" may carry on. I wake up thinking about this series and I go to sleep thinking about this series. Every moment of free time I have I disappear into corners and under blankets to read and read and read until my eyes hurt.
I suppose I should give some explanation as far as what this book actually is. The series, called "All For the Game," was written by Nora Sakavic and self-published. Consequently, it has very simple covers, quite a few grammar mistakes an editor would have caught, and, worst of all, is all available only as e-books. For many this last thing might not be an issue – for myself it was a drawback that, for quite some time, hindered my desire to enter into the series. I love paper books more than most things in this world.
The series is about a young boy named Neil who is on the run from his murderous father; a boy who, in the last eight years, has gone through nearly countless countries and 22 fake names. He surrenders his life on the run to return to his childhood love, a sport called exy, invented by Sakavic, similar to lacrosse but more violent and far more popular. The books follow Neil as he is sucked up into an exy team that resembles a more volatile island of misfit toys, and the reader watches as he slowly allows himself to love and be loved by them, like an infant rolling out of a swaddle to lay bare in its mother's arms.
Having, as aforementioned, none of the help most books are allowed by way of editors, agents, et cetera, the series is chock-full of flaws. Besides the more obvious grammatical errors, the dialogue in the novels often borders on ridiculous, overflowing with exposition and full of more honesty than any real people would ever give one another. The prose style, as well, is hardly elegant, lacking in any images or metaphors which might haunt one's mind when the page is turned. Nonetheless, the story moves with such fluidity and speed, like a wild animal released after weeks of captivity, and the characters and their relationships are so real, harrowing, and honestly effecting, that the reader completely forgets what errors may have elsewhere caused them to cast such a book aside. Instead they turn the final page and can only lie back and think, I wonder if I can start an exy team.
