Stupid is as Stupid Does: A Review of Neal Shusterman’s Bruiser by Judy Jester

Posted by CBethM on June 27, 2013 in Retro Reviews | 8 Comments

I remember as a teenager being disgusted by the writers of General Hospital. One day they decided to have an evil genius, Mikkos Cassadine, freeze the fictional town of Port Charles and hold it for ransom in July, the first step in his plot for world domination through his weather machine. First, I was supposed to believe that one of the main characters on this soap opera had fallen in love with her rapist and now this. It was beyond the pale. How stupid did they think we were? Soon after I started watching The Guiding Light.

I had pretty much the same reaction when my husband was reading Jurassic Park years ago. When he told me what it was about after I asked after the plot, I dismissed it out of hand. What I hadn’t realized was the trouble Crichton had gone to to make the implausible plausible. Neal Shusterman, while never explaining the source of Brewster’s powers, does have his characters react to them as incredulously as you or I would, giving the story some real verisimilitude.

Brewster’s powers? Yes, powers. Brewster, the protagonist, of Shusterman’s Bruiser, unwittingly takes on both the physical and psychic pain of those that he loves. You don’t know this at the outset of the book, of course. You believe as the initial narrator does that Bruiser (I mean Brewster) is being abused at home. What else could cause such horrific scars? To ward off further hurt Brew isolates himself from others as much as possible other than his uncle and little brother Cody. His controlled world slowly begins to unravel when he meets Bronte and then her brother Tennyson.

The author of almost thirty books, Neal Shusterman, has written works which include The Schwa Was Here, the Everlost triology, and the Unwind series among others. One of the things I love about Bruiser is that it takes a while for Shusterman to reveal the fantasy element into the plot. Another reason I love it is that he wrote such great characters that you really care what happens to them. He even creates empathy for the bad guys. This multiple narrator book also makes you think, “Why do we sometimes behave in ways we wouldn’t otherwise? Would I take advantage of Brew as Cody and Tennyson do, or would I take the high road as Bronte does?”

What makes it great beyond this? Brewster is a very decent guy. He worries that he’ll turn out like his Uncle Hoyt even though every instinct he has cries that he’s nothing like him. Middle schoolers will have someone to look up to in Brew. Even Tennyson, who has the makings of a bully at the beginning of the book, is able to put aside what’s in his best interest for Brewster though he struggles with this for a bit. It’s also funny. Hidden within this Shakespearan tragedy are lines like, “My sister is dating the dude voted “Most likely to get the death penalty.”

Then there’s the word play. John Pikulski, one of my professors at the University of Delaware, and a past president of the International Reading Association, told our class some twenty years ago that reading was the single greatest way to increase your vocabulary. He went on to say that direct study only accounts for fifteen percent of our vocabulary. The rest, a whopping eighty-five percent, comes from what you read. Accordingly, my students read a lot. Not just to increase their vocabulary, of course, but it doesn’t hurt.

Tennyson and Bronte’s parents, both English professors themselves, don’t subscribe to Pikulski’s theory though you get the feeling that they do encourage their kids to read as much as possible. Instead, they take turns giving them a power word of the day. These turn up as chapter titles that Shusterman seamlessly weaves into the narrative. Kids will walk away from this book not only entertained and stretched about the nature of mercy, but they’ll have a stronger word arsenal to boot.

My colleagues and I are so taken with Bruiser that it will be the first title in our initial foray of summer book discussions that Penny Kittle advocates in Book Love: Developing Depth, Passion, and Stamina in Adolescent Readers. When we meet in mid-July, we’ll address students’ questions and concerns first. Then we’ll ask them to choose which of three YouTube videos they believe best capture the heart of the book. Who knows where that will take us? One thing’s for sure: Shusterman’s given us plenty to discuss and none of it is how stupid he thinks we are.

Judy Jester is an 8th grade English teacher at Kennett Middle School in Landenberg, PA and a co-director of the Pennsylvania Writing and Literature Project at West Chester University. She blogs with two colleagues at http://thirdandrosedale.blogspot.com and occasionally on her own at Remaining Seated, http://jmjd@wordpress.com. Follow her on Twitter at @judyjester.