Book Review: Bruiser, by Neal Shusterman

More YA! Seriously, I’m way behind on reading new teen titles, so I’ve entered a period of picking up and reading as many as I can. The blurb on this one caught my eye, and even though I don’t normally read books like this, I gave it a shot. I’m glad I did, because it engrossed me enough to start casting my net a little wider. While I had a few small issues with it, I found Bruiser to be profoundly interesting, and a very good read.

Brewster Rawlins is the creepy kid that we all knew about but didn’t actually know all that well. Hulking and reclusive, Brewster is known by most as “the Bruiser,” and was not-so-secretly voted by the general student body as Most Likely to Receive the Death Penalty. Tennyson Sternberger knows all this, but between his busy lacrosse schedule, his odd relationship with his girlfriend, and the slowly devolving situation between his parents, he doesn’t really give Bruiser a second thought. That is, until he discovers that his twin sister Brontë is dating the Bruiser. Tennyson, generally known as a bit of a snob and a bully, intends to confront the large boy and protect his sister, but instead discovers that Bruiser has a strange and unexplained ability: he can take pain away. This miracle is not without a price, though, and as Tennyson and Brontë get closer to Bruiser, they begin to see how high the cost is. Brewster, a secretly sensitive soul, has a chance to finally come out of his shell and seek the kinds of happiness that he has always denied himself, but only if Tennyson and Brontë can learn their own lessons about the nature of pain.

This book was all kinds of unexpected. While mostly an interpersonal “issues” story, it also has a definite twist of the supernatural. The reader is thrown into a multi-perspective narration; the story is told in turns by four main characters, some of which have drastically different voices (Brewster’s sections are in verse, for instance, while his kid brother is as naïve and childish as the Sternberger twins are snarky and over-educated), but despite the clashing voices, the story fits together perfectly and the pace is just right. The first half of the book is particularly good; I was hooked in the first few pages. The setup is brilliant, and the “discovery phase” of who Bruiser is and what he can do is pitch-perfect for all characters involved.

The second half of the book drags a little, but not through any major fault of the writing. I think it might be because there are aspects of Bruiser’s gift that are very clear to the reader early on, but that the other characters don’t really seem to catch on to until the very end. Also, this book has a bad case of Parents Are So Dumb, like many other YA books. I don’t actually have a problem with this in and of itself; good teen books should have strong teen characters, which by default relegates adult characters to the background for the most part. But because Tennyson and Brontë are so articulate and witty for their age, and because their parents are so childish for theirs, the main characters all have a level of control and moral authority that edges just over the line of believable. Not that the situation that unfolds at the Sternberger household isn’t completely realistic, because it is. It also adds the perfect amount of tension and drama at just the right part of the story. I think it’s just a characterization issue for me; Tennyson and Brontë’s parents sound too much like less mature versions of Tennyson and Brontë, which is a common stylistic choice for this kind of book, but still bothers me a little. If you must, blame Stephenie Meyer for my intolerance when it comes to this, because as far as I’m concerned, she ruined it for everyone. It didn’t help when Dad misspelled “Vaya con Dios” during a decidedly juvenile outburst, but considering that Tennyson mixes up “silicon” and “silicone” later, I’m willing to chalk that up to simple author error.

Small annoyances aside, though, this is a tightly written and genuinely gripping book. It has wide appeal, considering how well it blends realistic teen lit and romance with a pinch of the paranormal. This is the first book by Neal Shusterman that I’ve read, but it definitely won’t be the last.

Verdict: 4 / 5