Synopsis:
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.
Review:
After seeing everyone talk about this series on Twitter for literally years, I’ve finally decided to read it myself. I don’t know what I was expecting but it wasn’t what I got, which isn’t a bad thing. I did enjoy this book overall but there were a few pain points. Let’s get those out of the way first.
I really dislike a lot of the language used in this book. Why are so many slurs used multiple times? A book being slightly older is no excuse for using such words, but this isn’t even that old. I’m genuinely disappointed and I’ve reduced my rating because of it.
My other negative is how slow this book felt. It isn’t super long, it’s actually less than 300 pages, but it felt much longer. This is probably because the sports terminology and descriptions of games took me a while to get through. I’m not a sporty person and exy, the sport of this book, is made up, so I had no clue what was going on. This happens to me with every book that describes the play by play of a game.
These characters are wild and I mean that in the best way possible. You never knew what they would do or say next and that definitely kept me turning the page. The way they act and their stories are so unbelieveable, but I’ll happily suspend my disbelief if the drama is this juicy. I’d never condone any of their actions in real life and I definitely draw the line at secretly drugging someone but the stakes are so high in this book that you’re too shocked to feel anything but excited for what will happen next.
Am I wrong for thinking there’s a romantic spark between Neil and Andrew? I’m getting serious vibes from them and for once, I’m willing to call a contemporary pairing enemies to lovers. They literally want to kill each other, I love it.
I will be continuing this series at some point as I got all of the books at once (for a really good price). The thing I’m most interested in is Neil’s real name. Is that weird? There’s so much going on, literal life or death situations, and I want to know his name. Yeah, a little weird.
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