When a book gives me a visceral reaction, I’m always a little surprised. Sure, there’s been more than one or two books that have made me tear up for one reason or another, but it’s rare to both cry and feel utterly sick to my stomach. I think I can count the number of those books on one hand.

And now I add Joshua Cohen’s debut Leverage to that elite group of books. This is one you need — need — to pick up and read.

Danny is a gymnast: he’s small, nimble, and he’s impressive as hell at what he does. He knows how the locker room works, too; steer clear of the football players, the track players, and go only to where his teammates have their space and everything will work out fine.

Kurt is the new guy in town. He’s been moved around more times than he can count, but now in the new school, he’s ready to just settle. He’s a football player and can probably best be described as a tank. He’s huge and he incites fear where he goes because of it. But Kurt’s a bit of a wimpy guy. At least, in comparison to his football teammates. Those guys define fear and power; Kurt is more laid back, less willing to jump into their coach’s offer of enhancing supplements.

I don’t want to explain too much more of the plot, but I’ll say this much — this is a mean guys story. This is the story of what happens in the locker room when smack talk goes beyond talk and turns into an all-out physical display of power. The things that the leaders of the football team do to other boys is unimaginable and leads to consequences far greater than one can imagine. We’re not talking about a little hit or slap in this book; we’re talking lives. And their reactions are probably what made this book so difficult to get through without a few tissues.

As far as Danny and Kurt are concerned, the two of them play a key role together. They’re allies, despite not necessarily knowing that or acknowledging it after everything plays out. Both are fully fleshed characters, and Cohen gives them distinct personalities and voices. In fact, they’re so distinct, I noticed when there was an error in the ARC where one chapter heading was swapped with another (that is, one of them was labeled Danny when it was really Kurt and vice versa). Both characters are sympathetic, and their growth is well developed. As readers, we get to know the bulk of Danny’s story upfront; we know what he’s all about and what his motivation and drive is. Kurt, on the other hand, we don’t. Since he’s the new guy, we learn very little about him except that he’s got some real stories to tell. There’s something about him that aches, and we want to know what it is because it will play a huge role in how he reacts to his teammates and their actions. The way these details come together is smart, and it gives the same insight into Kurt’s character that Danny has. This technique lets us play along with Danny and dares us to draw conclusions alongside him. We have to learn to trust that his actions will be self-guided and not guided by the actions of his team.

Leverage is an important book about athleticism, about sportsmanship, and about the cruel truths that happen in a setting that involves extreme competition, alpha male syndrome, and most importantly, steroids. The football coach has let his athletes partake in the use of supplements to make themselves bigger, stronger, and more intimidating; worse though is that the coach supplies these supplements to his players. This lengthy book — over 400 pages — clips along at a rapid pace because there is so much going on, and as readers, we can’t help but hope for some sort of justice in the story. Danny and Kurt make us care. And we want to know what will happen to the coach, to the team leaders who ruin lives.

While I was emotionally invested and knew what was going on was about as real and honest as it could be (and I know this not as someone who has experienced this personally but who spent a lot of time with a guy in high school who quit the football team because of the bullying), I felt that the ending was a bit of a let down. It was the easy way out. Too obvious.

I kept comparing this book to Courtney Summers’s Some Girls Are and I think these two books are excellent (unfortunate, even) readalikes. The grit and honesty, as well as the unflinching look at power dynamics among teenagers is brutal. The biggest difference, I think, is that despite a couple of things that Danny and Kurt do that make them unlikeable, they are ultimately likeable characters. They come out ahead, and they have redeeming qualities.

Cohen’s Leverage will have appeal to boys who are and aren’t athletes, as I think a lot of the experiences in here will ring true in more ways than presented. This is a book for the boys; while girls will surely enjoy it, there is little doubt that boys will get this. There is a real sense of emotion here without it being an emotional story. The emotions are manifested physically, which is true to how guys process the big events in their lives. And I don’t think anyone will be intimidated by the length because it speeds along. There were times I had to put it down because the events were that powerful, but the lapse in time was short. I wanted to see the redemption, the reaction, the way the rest of the story would play out.

Don’t go in with expectations, since they’ll all be tossed. I had an event spoiled for me (by choice) but that didn’t even bother me. There were enough other shocking events in the story to keep me surprised.