Reviews with content warning for Toxic friendship - The Foxhole Court

Reviews tagging 'Toxic friendship'

The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavic

83 reviews

jlkopp's review

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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amelierawr's review against another edition

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dark fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

This will be a rant
(in the following I will mention drug abuse and sexual assault)

This was garbage, yet I still enjoyed the read. It has so many problems that I don't know were to start. The plot is alright overall, your typical dark fanfiction shit, but it was intriguing enough to keep me reading.
It's fast paced and has a lot of issues plot wise, but I can look past that. What bothered me the most and caused actual problems were the damn characters. I think i never felt so much hatred towards a whole cast.

I went into the book knowing the trigger warnings so it luckily didn't catch me off guard, yet I think Im allowed to take issue on how such triggering topics got handled. It was bad- like really really bad.
The main cast is a sports team put together by the coach, who gives people that went through a lot in their life another chance. They all have some issues, but that doesn't excuse their behaviour in any way.
My main problem lies with the 3 cousins. In one scene they force feed the mc drugs and held him down when he tried to flee, one even sexually assaulted him later on, yet they never really face any consequences. The coach does scream at them, as they've done something similar to another player too. But they don't face any risk of being thrown out the team at all.
I get that coach tries to give everyone second, third or even fourth chances, knowing they wouldn't get them elsewhere, but that's just ignorant and hurts to see. It never get's really addressed in the book of how disturbing that was, even the mc "brushes it off" a few days later.

Im just disappointed. The only bearable characters were Matt and Dan, kudos to them for having mental heath issues but still knowing how to treat others like human beings. /s

Putting your characters through the most traumatic shit imaginable doesn't equal good writing/dark fiction.
The "romance" was a complete disaster, because it's based on exactly those unresolved issues. If the author had more interest in actually establishing the characters and not focus on how corny and dark they can go, I think this would have been much much better.
I don't have a problem with reading about toxic relationships in general, but at least make it understandable why it is the way it is, like how they cannot break up even when the relationships hurts one of them/ both in the end.

++positive thing was the great dynamics the characters had, even when most of the dialogue was insulting I genuinely laughed at some of those interactions.

torn between either giving a 1/5 or 4/5, which is why I will let it stay unrated

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pitsikakku's review

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dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

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chibiii's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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amandajsmith's review

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adventurous dark fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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slightlylostwriter's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

On both subjective and objective levels, this book had many problems, some of which bothered me greatly, others which didn't, except on a few occasions. It had many flaws, but I had fun with it. It's bizarre. It's all over the place. It's short but could've been shorter. The characters are very over the top. Some concerning things are glossed over that should not be so (ableist and homophobic language, a SA scene, nonconsensual drugging to name a few), and you should be aware of this going into the book.

If I was Neil, and thankfully I'm not, I would've left the foxes at the very least after Eden. Most of them are not good people, which can be attributed to their trauma in most cases but does not make everything they say or do okay in any way. I care for them as fictional people but would not want to be associated with them in real life.

This book is not for everyone, and it is a MUST to read the trigger warnings cause there are MANY.

I will read the rest of the series because I care about the characters, and it was a fun read because of how ridiculous it was.

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moonlightamelia's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced

5.0

Nora sakavic had a word document and a dream and holy fuck. the tension in this was probably the best i’ve ever read. not always the biggest fan of found family tropes but i think i’m gonna enjoy this one.

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