1.5/5
“It’s not the world that’s cruel. It’s the people in it.” —
Neil Josten is the newest addition to the Palmetto State University Exy team. He’s short, he’s fast, he’s got a ton of potential—and he’s the runaway son of the murderous crime lord known as The Butcher.
Signing a contract with the PSU Foxes is the last thing a guy like Neil should do. The team is high profile and he doesn’t need sports crews broadcasting pictures of his face around the nation. His lies will hold up only so long under this kind of scrutiny and the truth will get him killed.
But Neil’s not the only one with secrets on the team. One of Neil’s new teammates is a friend from his old life, and Neil can’t walk away from him a second time. Neil has survived the last eight years by running. Maybe he’s finally found someone and something worth fighting for.
Guys, I have come to a terrible conclusion. I don’t think I’m cool. I’m obviously not hip or into the things that all the cool kids are into because I really didn’t like this book and it seems like all the cool kids really do.
This, much like Captive Prince trilogy, are books that everyone loves. They are all over the internet, with Tumblr being seriously obsessed. You honestly won’t believe how many quotes and fanart I see of these series on a daily basis. And much like Captive Prince, I hated this.
All I ever see about this book is how amazing it is. How the characters are too pure for words. How cool a sports Exy would be if it were real. All I hear is awesomeness and that’s not what I got.
I know people love them, I didn’t feel like I was supposed to be cheering for this group of violent, unreliable, unlikable misfits. Neil, the main character gets beaten, sexually assaulted, threatened, bullied and get’s his possessions broken into, by his ‘teammates’ no less, multiple times in this book. At one point, they even drug him, after he said that he did not do drugs and did not want to try any. They then come out with the whole, ‘it was a test’ bullshit. No. That’s not ok. It’s a crime, is what it is.
The team is disorganized and dysfunctional, and not in an endearing way. They constantly threaten to kill each other, one even pulls out a knife and almost stabs people and several occasions! Then they all go back like nothing happened because that one guy has been through a lot or something.
That same guy also goes around intimidating people, to the point that his teammates are afraid of him and even the coach won’t tell him what to do. It’s why no one says anything when he threatens and bullies the main character, because, you know, that’s just how he is and if you don’t like it you can leave.
Another thing, you can’t blame your antipsychotics and your mania for being an asshole. And your tragic past is no excuse for pulling a knife on your cousin and threatening to kill him. No, just no.
I refuse to tolerate any of this! None of it is ok! And to think that in future books, this turns into a romantic relationship! If these were real people and those two were a real couple you would all be calling it toxic and messed up. I refuse to take it in my books either!
Then there was the sport, Exy.
“I don’t care enough about Exy to hate it.”
And that line wasn’t even me. It was spoken by one of the main characters and honestly, I agree. This is a made up sport that involves a racquet or something and is very aggressive. Think, lacrosse, hockey, and football all mixed together. Oh, and it’s a coed sport. A coed, contact sport. Because a 6’3” guy playing any of the aforementioned sports against a 5’2” girl is fair and equal. Right? I’m all for equality in sports but a sport where people could potentially be tackles and just straight up attacked, needs some boundaries.
Also, these players never train! They train on their own with the teammates they like at the time that they like. And yet they wonder why they suck. The coach knowingly lets them get pass-out drunk, do drugs, and beat each other up without intervening because he’s a ‘cool’ coach. Lastly, one of the players is only allowed to be on the field if he’s high on antipsychotics. The very same player that goes out on the field with knives strapped to his body! WTF kind of sport is this? Certainly not one that the NCAA would approve of.
And yes, it’s fiction. But this is set in the real world, one in which they like to mention the NCAA a lot despite clearly having no understanding of how it works.
Lastly, what was the plot of this book? What was the point? Was there an end goal to any of this? If there was, I certainly didn’t see it. Everything was just there and it felt absolutely pointless. I don’t understand how people compare this to Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven Cycle. I honestly don’t see how you can honestly say that those books are even related in any way. Maggie’s books had a plot and made sense despite their outlandish plots, and more importantly, had likable characters! Characters that didn’t threaten to kill each other on a regular basis and then talk about brotherhood.
I’m sorry if you are one of the many, many people who liked this, but I just couldn’t deal with it.
And I almost forgot, because I am me and I have masochistic reading tendencies, I got the free sample of book two, just to see if it got better. It didn’t.
Maybe I’m just not cool and don’t understand what’s hip nowadays, but I will not be reading the rest of this series.
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