Review of “Gym Candy,” by Carl Deuker
“Gym Candy,” by Carl Deuker is a fascinating novel about a teenage boy who turns to steroids to achieve his dreams of football fame.
Mick Johnson has always loved football, even from the time when he was a young boy playing football in the backyard with his father. Mick’s Dad was once a famous high school football star. Unfortunately, he never made it big in the NFL, but he is determined that his son Mick will. Mick’s Dad teaches him everything that he knows about football, and even goes out of his way to make sure that Mick will always have an advantage. Mick is even entered into school nearly a year late so that he will always be older than the other kids and therefore he will have an edge of them when he is on a football team.
Everything goes well for Mick until he reaches middle school. On the varsity team Mick’s age difference just isn’t enough to give him the winning edge. Suddenly Mick finds himself working as hard as he can, but he simply can not best some of the other players on the team. A few of the other kids are just naturally stronger, faster, and better players.
For a while Mick tries working out to improve his strength, but his gains are miniscule compared with the time and effort involved. And in the meantime Mick is stuck as a second string player, passed over by the coach. This doesn’t please Mick’s father, and it ruins Mick’s dream of being the team’s star running back.
Then Mick meets Peter, a personal trainer at the local gym. Peter helps Mick with a special weight lifting program that is designed to help him gain strength, but he also tells Mick that if he really wants to get stronger and win the coach’s favor, he should take gym candy, special steroids that will make him bulk up and have more strength and stamina.
At first Mick resists the urge to take steroids, but as weeks pass and he still fails to make progress and catch the coach’s eye, Mick begins to think more and more about Peter’s offer.
Mick starts with Dianabol, or D-bol as it is called. The steroid helps Mick to run faster and work out much harder that before. Soon Mick is taking stacks, cocktails of different hormones, steroids and other illegal drugs. But then Mick starts on XTR, a dangerous mix of amphetamines and steroids that he takes just before each football game for a huge rush of energy and strength.
Mick captures the coach’s and the rest of the school’s attention with his amazing plays. But the newspaper headlines, and attention from friends and schoolmates can’t completely erase the side effects of the steroids: powerful steroid highs followed by crushing depression and punctuated by frightening burst of anger called ‘roid rages. And all through this Mick has to worry about his secret being discovered by his coach or the other team members.
“Gym Candy” in no way condones the use of steroids, but it helped me to understand why some sports players take them. Even the desire to play clean can easily be erased under the heavy barrage of pressure to preform better than others in the cutthroat competition of school sports.
Carl Deuker does a very good job of telling the story. Mick’s voice is very balanced throughout the story, telling the details, and explaining the facts and sensations in a matter of fact way that I found fascinating. The characters are very alive, and their pressures and desires come through in “Gym Candy” very vividly.
I would recommend “Gym Candy” by Carl Deuker to teen readers because it is informative about the facts of steroid use while showing the consequences as well.
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