I haven't read a lot by this author and doubt I will. Maybe I am not the target demographic, but other than an intruiging idea - the book didn't have anything going for me. The characters were awful, thick and so self-centered that I was tempted to shout at them through my e-reader. Everybody used the name-giving character for their own purpose and blatantly so. He was ablt to free himself from one abusive situation only to let himself be exploited even further. The budding romance vanished throughout the second part of the book and sentences such as

" Can I find it in my heart to NOT find it in my heart?"

or

" The spleen line usually works, because it’s one of the more mysterious organs and so any threat involving it is deeply troubling."

did NOT help the book at all. The language (with the exeption of some of Bre's lines) was plain and tried too hard to be YA, while the exploration of the idea remained superficial at best. Brew lost his voice in the second part, he became a mere gimmick to hammer the "message" in.

(I also wanted to throw Cody off a cliff at several occasions.)

The pretentiousness of the names and the pointlessness of all side characters notwithstanding, I enjoyed the poetic way in which Brew expressed himself in the first part. Poor guy had to wake up in the end, though... ( )

CW: Child abuse ( )

Rating for the first half: 4-5 stars.
Rating after chapter 45: 2.5-3 stars.
Please read full review for why.

I want to take a moment to talk about this book, really get into all those nooks and cracks. This book at its core is about abuse. Well there is a fantastical element to Brewster this is just an aspect of the book not the focus in a lot of ways. Bruiser is about a kid and his brother being held emotionally and physically hostage by an abusive parent. Well the fantastical nature of his power does come into play it is used as a literal representation of what this kind of abuse feels like. There is so much about how the Uncle beats Brewster's brother in order to hurt him, that is a abusers go to in the handbook. The fact that Brewster takes the abuse physically upon his body is just a metaphor. In a way all of this book is a metaphor.

I ended up swept up in the fact that this was portraying domestic and child abuse in a way that children could understand, when the uncle hurts Brewster's brother or himself it hurts his abuse victim. This is a tactic I know very well, I survived this kind of abuse. We are often I wasn't the one who was harmed physically but my abuser hurt themselves in order to harm me. Or they would harm a pet, or someone close to me. Seeing it done in this book with the magical element added it feels awful. Awful. This is real abuse in a child's book. And it is portrayed exactly how it is. There is no moment where Brewster feels safe, his little brother feel safe in ways because his big brother is taking all the abuse for him.

I find Tennyson to be amazing, as a character he is a child, and he is written as a child. But he is written as a bratty little brother but also a brother who cares about his sibling. Tennyson never loses sight of his family, even when he has basic feelings or anger or greed he knows that he loves his family. And I really appreciate that he didn't lose that along the way.

The parallels between the families that are shown is amazing, Brewster has an uncle and no family and it's all bad, while Tennyson and Bronte both have a family that is falling apart but they still stay strong and it's still better than what Brewster has. Both have their own problems but in the face of each other's it feels small and not as bad. And yet it is bad for Brewster. It's bad for Cody.

This is honestly a 4 star book until chapter 46 onward.

Now for the flaws.

POV issues.
I don't really care about Bronte for a while, the book opens with this hard steering power that makes it feel like it's going to be a book all about Tennyson. It's only later than it switches to bronte's perspective and you realize oh this is a book about both of them. It doesn't even feel like initially we're going to see it from anyone's perspective besides Tennyson, that's how driven his chapters feel. Brewster and Bronte both have the problem of their chapters feel lackluster and not as strong, I have no issue with Brewster's chapters being in prose. But I do have problems with the strength of them. As soon as it switches back to Tennyson it is all him all the time and it is obvious that this book was written for his perspective only.

The parents.
I feel like the parents sort of just exist and needed more time. They take a forefront in the book near the end of it, but with just a couple of chapters left it feels like they're not there enough. In fact they're not there for most of 45 chapters, they're just perceived through the other kids. But we have some interesting tidbits on them and it would be nice if it was elaborated upon more. I think Bruiser is a great book, and we need more books to address abuse like this.

The auto defense behavior of the parents.
It is a spoiler warning but the parents of Tennyson and Bronte adopt Brewster for a short while. During this it goes from Brewster is a person to Brewster is a threat to their children namely the girl he's dating, Bronte. This completely changes the prior chapters given the family knew they were dating and had no issue with them being alone all the time. Bronte often went on walks with him, on dates with him, anything that could have happened at home would have happened while out. This pushes that stereotypical overprotective parents being weird for no reason other than "oh my gosh there's a boy and a girl living in the same house". It is horribly annoying to see that in this book. It is such outdated behavior I do not know why it is here.

The pacing.
Personally in many ways I think this book should have ended at chapter 44 or 45, I felt like those were the chapters where it was wrapping up and it didn't need to have that tail end added. If it had ended in the early 40s it might have stayed 5 star, continuing hurt it more than it helped.

As it pushes on we enter the territory of if you wanted enough you can hold on to it, which a lot of people complained about in the comments here but I understand, their uncle was angry so much that he held on to his anger. This sounds like a plot hole that he was still angry when Brewster should have took everything. But if you want to be angry hard enough you would hold on to it much like Cody holds on to his fear. But by introducing this concept to us it throws off the whole plot by just a little bit. Now the plot is a bit of a crooked photo. And I can never not see that it is crooked.

The character assassination post chapter 45.
For some reason both Tennyson and Bronte forget completely and utterly about Brewster's power. Like they continue on with introducing them to multiple people having him be around a lot of friends and all sorts of things. Things that are very dangerous knowing his power. But on top of that everyone in the household including those who know keep having their emotions taken away and not understanding why. Tennyson and Bronte both are in the know of what's going on, but it is utterly vanished from their mind this power that he has. So they start to be really weird and act out of character or extremely dangerously.

Brewster isn't even a focus after these chapters. He's existing in the background, sponging up everyone's problems. Tennyson gets absolutely character assassinated. He goes from a rational person who understands Brewster's power and cares about him to using him for the very last few chapters. No real reason besides he decides that he's going to use him to make everything bad feeling go away.

And that all leads into what made this a two-star book near the end. Brewsters symbolism and existence after being saved is he exists to take everyone's pain. A victim exists to absorb all of the pain around him until it kills him. That is absolutely disgusting. There is so much of this book that was saying that Brewster was more than his powers Brewster was more than all of the abuse Brewster was so much more. And we end basically with he exists to take the pain until he dies, the very thing that he escaped his uncle to reclaim his life over is what happens to him. This isn't a happy ending, and it happens mostly because Tennyson and Bronte decide to be utterly selfish. An extremely preventable fate.

And for what, what was the point of getting him out of an awful situation where he was going to die and putting him into another situation where he was going to die? The ending implies that he is not dead, but there's no proof that he isn't brain damaged or worse. This portrayal of an abuse victim existing only to take other people's pain and abuse really drove this book into a bad place. ( )

Neal Shusterman is just a master of the craft. He writes such engaging and interesting stories with likeable characters. Tennyson, Bronte,and Brewster will stay with me for a long time. ( )

This book had a typical plot but it was not what it seemed. It had me hooked and touched me. Do not be deceived by the title or the teenage setting, get it and read it. ( )