War and Speech

April 1, 2020

Gr 9 Up-Sydney's life has been upended by her parents' divorce and her father's imprisonment for tax fraud. She moves across town and gets a fresh start at Eaganville School for Arts, where she is shocked to find that the speech and debate team kids are the alphas. After engaging in verbal altercations with several speech team members and witnessing the toxic culture created by the coach, Sydney vows to take them down. She is encouraged to do so by her new friends, fellow misfits Lakshmi, Thomas, and Elijah. They devise a plan where Sydney will join the team and destroy it from within; not part of the plan is the realization that Sydney has a natural talent for speech, especially once she looks within and summons the confidence to tell her own story. And once she smells victory, she's not sure if she can throw away her solid shot at winning. Sydney is white, while secondary characters have diverse backgrounds and cultures. Zolidis, a playwright, has written an entertaining book that is also smart and thought-provoking. VERDICT Hilarious from start to finish with fast-paced dialogue and one ridiculous scenario after another, this book will fly off the shelves.-Laura Gardner, Dartmouth Middle School, MA

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2020
A girl plots a takedown of the toxic Speech and Debate team that rules her school. When Sydney starts at Eaganville School for the Arts, she immediately runs afoul of the powerful Speech and Debate kids due to her mouthy nature. She's adopted by other misfits with Speech grudges--athletic Lakshmi; former Speech star Elijah; and gay theater aficionado Thomas. Sydney decides to avenge her friends by joining Speech and Debate and destroying it from the inside. To do this, she must become good enough to stay on the varsity team all the way to Nationals. The dissent Sydney and friends sow within the team involves inflaming rivalries, toying with hormones, and various other dirty tricks--luckily, the varsity team members are so odious that their punishments remain hilarious. The true villain is the win-at-all-costs abusive coach. Sydney also copes with her family's new normal--incarcerated father, dramatically reduced socio-economic status, and her mother's boyfriend, a meathead lunk played for laughs (until he blossoms into a surprisingly supportive and caring character). Humor infuses everything--Sydney's narration, gleeful profanity, irreverence, and elaborate scheme sequences. The members of the highly diverse cast have distinctive voices and personalities (Sydney and Elijah are white, Lakshmi is Indian, and Thomas is black). The infiltrate-and-destroy storyline combined with immersion in a subculture that is taken with deadly hilarious seriousness make this read like the demented love child of Mean Girls and Pitch Perfect. Outrageous and uproariously funny. (Fiction. 14-adult)

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April 15, 2020
Grades 9-12 After Sydney's dad is imprisoned for financial crimes, she is enrolled at the Eaganville School for the Arts, where speech is life. Luckily, the social faux pas she makes in front of a member of the speech team is offset by the new friends she makes. When Sydney learns that each of them has suffered at the hands of the speech team and that the coach himself has ties to her father, they band together to plot the team's downfall. But when Sydney lands a spot on the team?as a plant?and makes it to nationals, will she choose to exact vengeance or take a shot at glory? Sydney's lively voice, the Mean Girls-esque school environment, and the specially formulated plans for each bad guy's downfall will help readers speed through Zolidis' lengthier tome. The novel's diverse cast of well-developed characters and sly commentary on toxic sportsmanship (by focusing on an academic sport instead of a clich�d football story line) make this an excellent choice for book clubs everywhere.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

May 25, 2020
High schooler Sydney Williams is a new student at Eaganville, a nunnery-housed arts school in Minnesota, where she’s starting over following her father’s imprisonment and her parents’ divorce. After a verbal altercation in her very first class, Sydney’s new friends—considered losers for their interests in activities such as basketball, drama, and improv—explain the school’s hierarchy, which is ruled by varsity speech and debate. Made up of mean-spirited, highly competitive kids and coached by a former motivational speaker who once impacted Sydney’s father, the team wins—and they don’t let anyone forget it. Humiliated by several on the squad, Sydney and her friends devise a plan to take them down: if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Zolidis (The Seven Torments of Amy and Craig) writes with humor and heart, giving readers a peek into Sydney’s growth as she learns from mistakes. What makes this stand out from books with similar tropes is Zolidis’s funny, sarcastic repartee and flair for creating multifaceted characters with depth, especially the bad guys. Ages 14–up. Agent: John M. Cusick, Folio Jr./Folio Literary Management.