Not everyone can be a winner. Sydney Williams knows this better than anyone. After her white-collar- criminal dad is sent to prison, Sydney fails almost all of her classes and moves into a dingy apartment with her mom, who can barely support them with her minimum-wage job at the mall. A new school promises a fresh start. Except Eaganville isn't exactly like other high schools, populated by your typical jocks, nerds, and band geeks. Sydney's new school is ruled with an iron fist by a speech team that embodies the most extreme winner-takes-all philosophy. And no one epitomizes these values like speech coach Joey Sparks, an emotionally abusive ex-motivational speaker with whom Sydney has a score to settle. Sydney is befriended by a group of fellow misfits, each of whom has been personally victimized by the speech team.

It turns out Sydney does excel at one thing in particular: talking and talking and talking . ?which makes her the perfect plant to take down the speech team from within. With the help of her co-conspirators, Sydney makes it to Nationals in speech, where she will be perfectly poised to topple the corrupt regime. But what happens when Sydney realizes she actually has a shot at . winning? Sydney lost everything because of her dad's obsession with being on top. Winning at speech might just be her ticket out of a life of loserdom. Can she really walk away from that?.