Gym Candy by Carl Deuker
Mick Johnson lives and breathes football. But when lifting weights and taking vitamin supplements do not give him the edge he wants, he turns to steroids. Along with becoming bigger, faster and stronger, Mick must also deal with "roid rage," acne, and depression. When he realizes he's cheated his way to stardom, he tries to quit but with dangerous results.
I really enjoyed the book because though it was fiction it used real life examples and taught me to learn from the character’s mistakes. A connection I can make as in the story GYM CANDY is how Mick uses steroids to become the best in him and once he realized that he cheated his way to stardom, until it him that he wanted to better himself without the help of dangerous drugs it’s too late and tries to detonate himself. As for my connection I had a fellow student which wasn’t a friend but a classmate and had a promising future until he got intense pressure from his parents and in order to impress them he started the use of steroids and it got to a point where he depended on them and many people were concerned as for a different side of him showed, when he finally came to his senses his body was so worn out that it needed the use of steroids to live his active life and when he tried to quit he didn’t know what to do and ended up hurting himself and ruining his future. I liked the part of the plot when Mick realized that what he was doing was cheating and wrong and his attempt to free himself. The setting where Mick pulled the trigger on himself was powerful to me because it made me think how Mick was at the last stage of depression and he couldn’t take anymore that he believed that the only way out was death. I really appreciated the theme and how it showed what cheating to impress and how it can really break you and not take advantage of your own body. The character’s mood changed drastically throughout the story from when he was happy and content with himself until he takes drugs to make himself better which puts him in a deep depression. I predict that if the story ended as it did, Mick took a while to get back into his normal life but lived with regret until maybe one day accepted what he did and moved on with life.
ReplyDelete(C.L,10th grade,ATC)
Gym Candy is a book about a kid named Mick who decides that to attempt to better his sporting career, he will start taking steroids. However, the use of steroids, quickly take a downturn and make him have a negative attitude all the time. His friends try to convince him to stop, but to no avail. Eventually, it climaxes when a friend confronts him and the argument turns violent. Mick shoots his friend and then turns the gun on himself as a last resort; because he can’t find a way out of his steroid addiction. Mick’s steroid addiction reminds me of a friend of mine who once had a sort of addiction to drugs. However, unlike Mick, he managed to get over it and is now back to being good and healthy. The plot of this book is very enthralling to me because of it’s sort of dramatic writing and the way it keeps you interested. I personally was not expecting the ending and it was a nice sort of dramatic twist to end the book off with. It’s always nice to read a book without a happy ending every once in a while. Anyone who enjoys sports or very realistic situations would most likely love this book and I recommend it strongly.
ReplyDelete(J.S., 10th Grade, ATC)
In my opinion, the book Gym Candy, was a very relatable, and understandably written book. The author made it very easy to relate Mick’s football career to the old days in my life when I played football. I played with much older friends, and was always the smallest in the group. I remember wishing I was bigger and older and stronger, and although I never resorted to steroids, I could place myself in the position of Mick, and feel relatively similar to the way he felt. While Mick tried his hardest to get bigger and stronger for his extremely bright future in football, he wasn’t satisfied with the results of working out alone, and then, wasn’t impressed with the results when he added vitamin substitutes. When he turns to ‘roids, he finally gets the results that he was looking for, and once he becomes the stronger, and faster football player, he finds it harder and harder to put down the needle. After his friend finds out about his abuse of ‘roids, he brings it up to Mick, and in a curious chain of events, Mick ends up grabbing his fathers gun, and attempting suicide. If this book were to have a seqel, I believe Mick would stay clean for awhile, but in his determination to return to football, he would find no other comfort other than the steroids. This book conveys it’s message to its readers powerfully, and with the realism of a blunt club to the head. I recommend this book to anyone who playes sports or is interested in sports.
ReplyDelete(G.M, 10th Grade, ATC)