Gym Candy By Carl Deuker Sparknotes

Carl Deuker’s Swagger is a powerful follow-up to the book Gym Candy also written by Dueker. This unpredictable, emotional book follows the protagonist Jonas Dolan who moves across the country to Seattle, Washington. Shortly after he moves, he befriends a childlike student named Levi Rawdon who “won’t even say the word ‘damn’” (261). Both are high school seniors trying to earn a scholarship to play basketball in college. Even though Levi’s game is good, his grades don’t keep up to the same high standard even though he tries extremely hard. Coach Hartwell—assistant basketball coach at the highschool—offers to tutor Levy to help bring up his poor grades. After a trip to the nearby mountains with Coach Hartwell, Levy’s entire persona changes, and he turns into a stoic, emotionless person. Shortly after, Levy tells Jonas that he was sexually assaulted by Coach Hartwell. Jonas has to decide whether he is going to tell the truth about Coach Hartwell (even though Levy doesn’t want him to) and risk his career as a college basketball player or keep the secret to himself.

After reading the first half of this book, I was immediately hooked to the compelling plot.

Seeing the traumatic life of Levy through Jonas’s eyes was truly spectacular, and it illustrated a common theme in the book which was that life is always full of struggle and hardships. There was always a feeling of pain and anticipation as I read through this book particularly about Levy. Also, the way Deuker describes the basketball games makes it feel like you are on the court with them. The feeling and emotion in the game is clear with instances like “The crowd, which had been holding its breath while that rainbow came down from the sky, erupted. Swish!” (188). Dueker’s books—most about sports fiction—-fantasize me with the incorporation of significant conflicts on and off the

court.

The development of the characters in this book was truly astonishing. The way Dueker illustrates the characters creates emotion in the book that translated to me (the reader). To be completely honest, in the beginning of the book, Hartwell seemed like a normal, nice man who takes pride in what he does for a living (teacher and basketball coach) . However, by the end of the book, Jonas “hated [Hartwell] to the core” and “he killed the best person I’d know, the best person I will ever know” (262). With all the emotion from Jonas, I also absolutely hated Coach Hartwell and what he did to Levy. Even though I knew Hartwell was a fictional character, he served as a symbol for all the sexual predators in the world. This book looks at the issue of sexual abuse and the effects it has on people. I admire Dueker for tackling such a difficult, emotional subject.

To summarize, this book was an emotional rollercoaster full of plenty of on and off the court action. I recommend this book to people who like sports fiction novels with a good background story that keeps you turning the pages.