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It's all there!

Customer Rating:

I teach Deuker's "Night Hoops" in my eighth grade English classes and it's consistently popular with even the reluctant readers. But now, I've found a novel I like even more. I like it because it wrestles with issues deeper than sports. I like it because it doesn't take the easy way out in the end. And I like it because it's just a damn good story, timely and entertaining. Despite my high endorsement, I do have one quibble. I'm very familiar with weights and lifting, and one sentence reveals a lack of care to details: "Now he was standing in front of the mirror, bench-pressing two hundred pounds . . ." Every bench press I know involves lying on the bench, not standing. That one quibble aside, this book is bound to be popular with boys facing the same issues Mick Johnson is facing.

So good I read it in one night

Customer Rating:

This book is amazing, it is realistic and a true portrayal of the temptation to use performance enhancing drugs in high school athletics.It has you praying Mick makes the right choice and kept my interest to the last page. Not a challenging read but has a great message a must read for the athlete or someone interested in the game or subject. Brings the truth to light and exploits the fact that something like over 40% of steroid use in the US is done by teens. LOVED IT!!!!

Bittersweet Candy

Customer Rating:

Carl Deuker, a name of note in YA sports writing, has scored again with this realistic look at how a high school football player who knows better can rationalize his way into steroids merely by being ambitious, competitive, curious, and in the wrong place at the wrong time. The scary thing is, that's not too unusual a combination. Take this plus the fact that protagonist Mick Johnson already knows about steroids' side effects and health risks -- but takes the plunge anyway -- and you see the stuff of Deuker's engaging plot. The stage is set with exposition about Mick's family -- chiefly the story of his dad, Mike, an ex-college football stand-out who fumbled his career away with a combination of bad behavior and worse attitude. Now Mike's redemption can only come vicariously by encouraging his son to succeed where he failed. Next we get a series of game scenes, a Deuker specialty, showing Mick's strengths -- speed and quick moves -- as well as his weakness -- strength. The pieces are in place, and when Mick's dad's company buys a health club, Mick gets an "in" that begins a dark journey into a tangled forest, the world of weight lifters on juice. Books like this are a boon for boys who are reluctant readers but enthusiastic sports participants, and Deuker doesn't pretend to be writing anything deep and literary -- he's just writing great plot that makes kids read. Make no mistake, however: this book has a message worthy of discussion. Better yet, it avoids the mistake of coming across as any finger-wagging lecture. In fact, I tip my hat to Deuker for juking the obvious ending (which was about to tackle him shy of a successful conclusion) and writing a more realistic one that scored big with me (extra point is good, too). You see, sometimes stories don't tie together so sweetly. Sometimes, in fact, the truth is more bittersweet than not. GYM CANDY is such a story with such an ending. A thoughtful, sobering sports book, I recommend it highly.

Richie's Picks: GYM CANDY

Customer Rating:

"Cheating is not a new problem in the United States or anywhere else. It has existed in nearly every human society. "In Ancient Greece, the Olympic games were rife with cheating. Athletes lied about their amateur status, competitions were rigged, judges were bribed. Those caught were forced to pay fines to a special fund used to set up statues of Zeus. Greece ended up with a lot of statues of Zeus." -- David Callahan, THE CHEATING CULTURE "First, since I played the game myself, I know that you can't put something in your body to make you hit a fastball, changeup or curveball. "The only person who can do that is the good Lord. But, at that age, you have to ask: Did he accomplish all of this by rejuvenating his strength from day to day with those substances? I know that when you reach a certain age, you just don't bounce back as quickly as you think you can when you're playing all of those games. "Drugs won't help you hit the ball. But can they make you recuperate consistently enough to hit the kind of home runs that these guys are hitting? "Let me say this. Any way you look at it, it's wrong." -- Hank Aaron, 2004 "When he came back, he sat down next to me, opened a plastic vial, and shook out four white tablets that were about three times as thick as aspirin. 'Guys just call it D-bol.' "I looked at them, but I didn't pick them up. 'So I take these and I get bigger?' "He shook his head. 'Not that easy. You have to work out even more than before. But it's better, because the results are bang, right there.' " -- GYM CANDY Even if you were to torture me by...hmmm...say, forcing me sit in the kitchen of an overheated Macdonald's and watch looping videos of MC Rove rapping and dancing for days on end, I'd still never be able to tell you what bright idea persuaded me to actually join the Commack North freshman wrestling team back in 1969. It's true that in my preadolescent days, I always had a swell time playing kickball and handball, and you couldn't pry me with a crowbar out of any body of water in the summertime. But I cannot begin to explain by what route I got from those enjoyable and healthy pursuits to the sweat and pain of the wrestling mats. It had actually been my little brother who always participated in Little League baseball, Pop Warner football, and ice hockey. As he'd be happy to tell you, my competitive juices more typically began flowing in those instances when a teacher directed the class to keep logs of every book read over the coming 4 months. It seemed that for years afterward, Mom was always telling people how my unhealthy behavior over that winter of freshman wrestling was the cause for my forever ceasing to grow any taller. (Of course, it couldn't have been related to the fact that Mom was just under 5' herself.) But Mom was absolutely right about one thing: I seriously abused my health by dieting over the course of that winter. From what I recall, it was a diet big on celery, lettuce, water, and vitamin pills, and I adhered to it religiously for the days leading up to each wrestling meet, and then binged for a day or two afterward before beginning the cycle again. It was a regimen designed to give me a competitive edge. It resulted in my being able to "wrestle down" to the 112 lb. range instead of the "flabby" 122 lbs. at which I initially weighed in at that fall. (Great Zeus! Was I really that weight once? Even if I were bouncing around on the moon, I'd never be that light again.) By the end of that freshman wrestling season, I had won half of my matches, lost half of my matches, and went on in the post-season to contract a championship case of walking pneumonia just in time for the vacation week in February. (In case you're wondering: My only other participation in organized sports after that winter was -- think Holden -- serving a year as the high school fencing manager, for which I received -- think Cutter Swim Team -- an actual varsity letter jacket.) And so I have a bit of long-ago experience with being willing to do something risky to be more competitive, to be the best player, the baddest hombre in headgear. And I've also experienced the consequences: Descending into walking pneumonia while on a family vacation that entailed my father driving us over a thousand miles to Florida and then back again with me coughing and hacking and gagging the entire way -- that really, really sucked. But those ten days of hocking loogies and running high fevers in my parents' '68 Wildcat was an absolute cakewalk when stacked up against the horror of high school running back Mick Johnson's falling victim to performance-enhancing substances in Carl Deuker's GYM CANDY. " 'Here's how it works, Mick. You try to run there,' he said, pointing behind the line,' and I try to stop you.' He shoved the mini football into the crook of my arm, led me to the far end of the yard, went back to the middle, got down on his knees, and yelled: 'Go!' " Mick has played football -- always at running back -- his whole life. His father, a former high school star, held Mick back a year before kindergarten so that Mick would always have that extra year and the additional physically maturity over the other kids in his grade. His dad's got two blank walls in the house that he expects Mick to fill with awards and newspaper write-ups. Mick is dead-set against using performance-enhancing substances, but his need to be stronger in order to surpass an older teammate, and the fear of having to fend off a younger teammate, result in his being more and more desperate and willing to compromise his values. And then there is, hanging over him, the awful memory of how his first high school season had ended: "With my teammates watching, with my dad watching, with every eye in the stadium on me, I'd failed. Completely and utterly failed. I'd been so sure of myself, so certain that if I got my chance, I'd make the most of it. How stupid! How like a third-grader! As if I were the only guy on the field with dreams. That linebacker who stopped me -- number 50. Before the game he had probably dreamed of making the big hit to save the game for his team. So why did his dream come true and mine go up in flames? What had he done that I hadn't? Why had I failed? Why had I come up a foot short? "There was an answer. I tried to keep it from coming, but there was no holding it back. You don't have the talent, a voice whispered -- my voice." Getting to follow him from when he's that four year-old in the backyard, Mick remains an exceptionally sympathetic character. This page-turner of a sports story is so vivid and well told that I literally experienced physical tension as I watched this teenager becoming more and more trapped in his cycle of lies and the side effects of his substance abuse. With every page we keep rooting for Mick, hoping that he can see clear to accepting what the good Lord has given him and to stop cheating himself.

Courtesy of Teens Read Too

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Mick Johnson has big football shoes to fill. His dad was a high school star who went on to be a college standout and then a third round draft pick in the NFL. There are two empty walls in the family den just waiting for all the honors and awards Mick is expected to earn. Things seem to be headed in the right direction. Mick is an accomplished eighth-grade running back. He and his friend are stoked to learn they have been invited to join the high school team for their spring workouts. By the end of the summer, they both actually make it onto the varsity team as mere freshmen. But just making the team is not enough for competitive Mick. He doesn't just want to be there; he wants to play there, too. Personal goals as well as parental pressure drive Mick to seek ways to speed things up. He knows he needs to be bigger and stronger, but natural growth is way too slow. Pills and protein powder from the health supplement store seem like a possible answer. He even gets his dad to agree and pay for the expense. Maybe he's on his way to playing bigger, faster, and stronger. When Mick starts increasing his weight training time, his dad has another answer. The radio station where he works is the new owner of the local fitness center -- and free memberships for employees come with the deal. Mick starts working out with his own personal trainer. Peter, the trainer, has other ideas of how to help develop power. Mick's competitive drive pushes him toward steroid use, with all its positive results and negative side effects. His game and his body do get stronger, but at what cost? Friends, health, and personal pride suffer as Mick becomes more and more involved with the performance-enhancing drugs. Carl Deuker, author of Runner and Night Hoops, focuses on football in this new book. His use of non-stop, play-by-play action, realistic teen frustrations, and personal demons make this a book even reluctant readers will be reluctant to put down. Reviewed by: Sally Kruger, aka "Readingjunky"