“He hasn’t played a clean game in years,” Kevin admitted, “but he knows how to follow orders. If you tell him to submit, he will.”
“Literally the most awkward way you could’ve worded it,” Jeremy said.
― Nora Sakavic, The Sunshine Court
The Sunshine Court tells the story of Jean Moreau after he leaves the Ravens. Jean’s story overlaps with the end of the third book in The Foxhole Court trilogy, “The King’s Men.”
After being extracted from Edgar Allen, Jean Moreau must come to terms with the fact that he is no longer a Raven. Book four starts with Jean waking up in South Carolina, where he is forced to remain and convalesce while his former team implodes. Despite being rescued from near death at Riko’s hands, Jean fights his rescuers and begs to be returned to Edgar Allen. The only things preventing him from escaping are his collection of broken ribs and a severe knee injury. Eventually, Neil, Kevin, and Andrew visit him and explain the deal they made with Riko’s brother, Ichirou Moriyama, the head of the Moriyama crime family. Jean will continue to play Exy, but he has been traded to the USC Trojans of the Gold Court.
This book and its sequel, The Golden Raven, are told via the alternating perspectives of Jean and of Jeremy Knox, the captain of the USC Trojans. Jean hates that he is no longer a Raven and that he is no longer a member of “The Perfect Court.” If there were any way he could return to his old team, he would. But the decision was made for him and now he must do what he was trained to do: follow orders without question.
Jeremy is Jean’s opposite. He is the cheerful, perpetually optimistic captain of the Trojan’s Exy team, nicknamed, “The Sunshine Court.” With patience, kindness, and more angst than anyone should ever have to endure, Jeremy and his best friends Cat and Laila slowly drag Jean into the light. From the day he was sent to the Ravens at fourteen, Jean was physically and mentally abused. At nineteen, Jean is more than a little bit damaged, but he is not broken.
Jeremy comes across as perpetually happy, but like every other character in this series, he has his own cargo ship’s worth of trauma. He is out and has been since high school, but his family considers him a disgrace. He is micromanaged by his mother and stepfather, and is forbidden from living outside of the family compound during the school year. Despite his extraordinary talent, his mother insists that he will become an attorney like his brother and stepfather. He has no money of his own, and is reliant on his family until after he graduates. His friends help keep him sane, and Exy’s demanding schedule helps him compartmentalize the rest. He admires Jean and wants to help him integrate into the team despite Jean’s aversion to anything that goes against his own strict Exy training.
Either I’ve been brainwashed or books four and five made far more sense than books one through three. After finishing Summer Sons, I needed something wild and over-the-top to keep me interested. And, as expected, the All for the Game series delivers on all fronts. Compared to the first three books, these were more uneven. I think because the main storyline was about bringing Jean back to the land of the living, whereas the Foxhole Court books ramped up the intensity and insane plot swerves with each new chapter.
I liked and disliked the things about The Sunshine Court and The Golden Raven that made them different from the original series. For one, they are far more wholesome and peaceful. However, this is where the unevenness comes in. Jean’s books spend seventy percent of the time describing Jean and Jeremy’s day-to-day experience. The remaining thirty percent deals with the mafia and the drawn out, spectacular collapse of the Raven’s Exy program. While the seventy percent does show how Jean and Jeremy build trust in one another and how Jean has to relearn how to be a human being beyond the Hunger Games of Riko and The Nest, the chapters followed a predictable pattern that became incredibly dull by the end of The Sunshine Court. For example, three or four chapters covered the training and interactions between Jean, Jeremy, Jean’s roommates, and their team, and then out of nowhere something truly horrific would happen off page with the Ravens that would send Jean into a fit of panic or self harm that Jeremy and their coaches would have to manage. Rinse and repeat.
Don’t get me wrong. I adore Jean and Jeremy. If there are five more books I will read them all. But this is perhaps the slowest of slow burns I have ever read. Call it sunk costs or what have you, but I really really hope book six wraps it up in a satisfying manner. Until then, at least there’s thousands of fanfics for me to work my way through.
Content warnings for off-page mentions of suicide, sexual assault, torture, and child abuse and on-page mentions of self harm and suicidal ideation.
