Danny may be a rising gymnastics star, but to the rest of the school, he's just the runt that gets picked on. He, and his other teammates are the constant target of the school's football stars. The two teams engage in a prank war that escalates and escalates, until something horrific happens to one of Danny's teammates. However, Kurt Brodsky, a new recruit for the school's football team, comes to their unlikely rescue, and becomes an unlikely ally. Told from the alternating points of view of Danny and Kurt, Leverage paints a realistic and difficult to digest picture of high school sports, one that isn't often talked about.

Usually, I don't read sports novels, and this one took a while for me to get into. To me, it was kind of slow moving at the beginning, and I honestly wasn't really sure where the novel as a whole was headed. However, once I got to the middle of the novel, I started getting into it, because I had learned more about the characters and cared more about them. However, I did get kind of annoyed the way the author kept hinting at Kurt's horrible background, and wouldn't just come out and say it. I think that aspect of the novel could have been handled a little better. As a whole, though, it was a generally fast paced read, once it picked up. Once things start to happen, it just escalates and escalates until the end of the novel, and keeps you on the edge of your seat. If you're a fan of sports novels, Leverage is definitely worth a look.

School wise, I don't think that this is one that you could embed into the curriculum. There are too many points in the novel that could be considered controversial, and it definitely would only work for an upper high school audience. This would be a novel that you could keep on the bookshelf in case you had a student that was interested in sports novels, being wary that it does contain some controversial scenes. This book is definitely worth keeping around.