Possible spoilers for The Sunshine Court & All For the Game. Tread lightly.
Listening to: “Waverly” by Samia
(Just finished) Reading: The Sunshine Court by Nora Sakavic
Watching: Lost (S4)
This week’s Listener’s Digest: “Me and Jack Daniel's got a history”
Posts from this week:
🖤 An aroace manifesto of sorts
📚 100 books that have influenced me
It’s been a long time since I picked up a book on release day and read it in (almost) one sitting. I don’t keep up with new releases like I used to, and even though I am reading a lot this year, a lot of the books I’m picking up are backlogged. But yesterday when I woke up, I had one thing on my to-do list for the day…read The Sunshine Court.
For those who are unfamiliar with Nora Sakavic and All for the Game, let me fill you in.
The series was self-published in the 2010s (the eBooks continue to be $.99) and it’s almost a contemporary series…except it isn’t. It’s set in 2006/2007, and it follows a group of college athletes who play a bastardized version of lacrosse called Exy. (Yes, it is fictitious.) Of course, it’s not really a fun campus novel. The original AFTG trilogy follows a freshman named Neil who may or may not be running from a very dark past. The Japanese yakuza may or may not be involved. He’s signed with the worst college exy team in the country - the Palmetto State Foxes - and he spends his first year getting himself and his team into shape to challenge the number one team and their biggest rival, the Edgar Allen Ravens.
Of course, that cannot express the depth of this series. It’s developed an unhinged internet following in the years following its publication, and with the return of this next book in the series, I fear the following will only grow. Why is it so beloved when the content is objectively traumatic? What is so compelling about a fictional sport? How does a spin-off/sequel play into this?
I first read this series five years ago while I was in New York for Bookcon. (Yes, it was the year of the 70 person photoshoot. Remember that drama?) I started it on my best friend’s couch one night when I needed to think less, and I had no idea at the time that I just opened the floodgates. A few days later, I was at home devouring The King’s Men, and then that was it. I was done for.
During the early years of the pandemic, I read this series over and over and over. It became a comfort in a way few series can. I blogged about it on Tumblr, endlessly stalking the aftg tag and finding blogs with fun headcanons at 2am. I wrote my own headcanons. I sunk deeper and deeper into a series that involves murder and rape and torture and friendship.
And that’s what did it for me. The characters. While the sport of exy is interesting, I’m not really a sports girl, and I see it as a means to an end. The end is the found family that comes with a good sports team. Each of the characters in this series stands on their own. They are rich and full of life, and every time I read it they become a little more real. But they do not exist in a vaccuum, and the whole center of this series is that we need community to be our best selves. We need friends to put us back together when the world tears us down. We cannot do life alone, no matter how hard we try, no matter how much we push people away. Throughout the course of the series we watch a team come together to save each of their own, but more than that we watch a boy learn how to trust and how to love. It’s literally about the power of friendship and how love conquers all.
Then again, as I said, this is a dark series. For all the humor and love and joy in these books, there is a lot of fucked-up shit. Spoiler alert, the Japanese yakuza is a huge part of this series. They’re mafia books. But the whole premise of the original series is that the Foxes are a team built up with kids who have suffered, who’ve gone through a lot, who are outcasts. Everyone has their own secrets, but the more you learn about these characters, the more you feel their pain. Each one has been to hell and back, but they are all learning how to love again. They are still capable of kindness and care, even when they’re lashing out over and over again. There are hard scenes to read. There is a long list of trigger warnings including but not limited to: drug use, sexual assault, physical abuse, emotional abuse, suicide, violence, slurs, homophobia. It can be difficult to read if you aren’t prepared for it.
But so many people are focused on the darkness when the point of these books is that they are full of light.
Which brings me to The Sunshine Court.
It’s been seven (?) years since the last exy book, and this time we’re focusing on our beloved Jean Moreau as he embarks on a healing journey. Jean is a Ravens player who has connections with Kevin and Neil, and his story is very similar to Neil’s…but infinitely more upsetting. Jean has seen a lot of darkness, and he is drowning within himself. His story relies on the kindness of the USC Trojans (yes, they have an exy team) and their team captain Jeremy Knox. Without spoiling too much, this book is set around the same time period as the original series, and there is some overlap with the Foxes, so it’s kind of the perfect spin-off. I was worried it wouldn’t live up to the expectations of the fandom, but it did everything right.
It’s difficult to write about a book that’s so important to me without spoiling it because I want to write essays about the things in this book. There are so many layers to explore, and every time I write about AFTG I feel like I’m not doing it justice. I don’t have the words to fully explain what it means to me or why I like it so much. And with TSC especially, it’s a book that isn’t for everybody and it’s really only for the true fans of the series. But I feel like I have all this energy within me trying to get out. I get a lot of joy from reading, but when I read AFTG I feel so overwhelmed with emotion that I can’t figure out what to do with it. And since TSC is the first in a sequence, I am waiting for a lot of things to resolve. I want more. This series makes me greedy and desperate. I am trapped in the brainrot and I cannot get out and I cannot be normal about this.
TSC is somehow both darker than AFTG and brighter. It is more fucked-up than the original series and yet somehow it is sweeter, kinder, and gayer. It’s so queer it makes my heart burst. It’s so heart-breaking that I want to curl up in a ball and cry. It’s about unraveling the lies you’ve been told about the world and about yourself and being brave enough to learn how to trust other people. It’s about finding peace. It’s about letting yourself love again. It’s about friendship and found family. It’s about forgiveness. It’s about finding your own worth. It’s about healing even when you think you have nothing to heal from.
Weirdly enough, some parts of this book remind me of Casey McQuiston, if only because there are some character dynamics that really feel straight out of One Last Stop or The Pairing. It’s obvious that queer culture has made a huge influence on Nora in the years since TKM released, and I’m so grateful we live in this version of the world. AFTG was always queer, but now it feels different. Like the rainbow after a storm.
Anyway. I’m insane. I turn 29 in two and half weeks. My whole body hurts from shooting a bunch of photos this weekend. Taylor’s new album drops this week. I’m in the middle of season 4 of Lost and the time travel is starting and I forgot how much I love this show. I have one more volume of Monstress before I’m caught up and these newer volumes are so batshit crazy I cannot wait to get even more content this fall. I’ve been listening to a lot of Samia and Shaboozey. My best friend got a dog. I’m still not sleeping very well. But life goes on.
I've seen this series recommended so many times on the internet, but have never picked it up. This post has definitely intrigued me and now I find myself needing to read this series desperately!
AFTG is certainly not for everyone and it took me a book or two to really get into it but if you like TRC there is a good chance you’d enjoy AFTG. It is dark and fucked up but I think it depends on what triggers you specifically and how you handle that kind of content. I grew up on high fantasy classics and those do not hold back so a lot of the stuff in these books are so-so for me…ALL was way harder bc that book makes you feel suicidal whereas I think this one just hurts your heart (not that ALL doesn’t also do that). Also most of the worst of it comes in books 2, 3 and now 4. I will say some of TSC feels reminiscent of ALL in a weird way… Book one is brutal in its own way but not nearly as bad as 2&3. I think it just depends on your comfort zone and what you’re looking for! It’s been such a comfort to me personally and even with all the violence I do strongly believe the heart of this series is full of goodness and life. But if you want an asian mafia book that isn’t quite as dark (still kinda dark tho) I highly recommend The Green Bone Saga!!