If he touches her, I swear I'm going to rip out his guts with my bare hands and send them to his next of kin for lunch.
Sixteen-year old Tennyson and Brontë Sternberger are twins, and Tennyson is not happy that his sister has a date with the Bruiser, Brewster Rawlins.
As for the Bruiser, he has no mother. No father either. No one knows what the deal is there. All people know is that he lives with his uncle and an eight-year-old brother who looks like he's being raised by wolves. And this is the family my sister wants to date into. My sister obviously was never visited by the common sense fairy.
Tennyson, who has some habits of bullying, plots to spoil the date and to prevent Brontë from spending time with Brewster. Despite how his sister feels, Tennyson feels he needs to protect her.
So hate me all you want, Brontë, for what I did here; but that will pas - and someday, if we're lucky, we'll both look back at this day and you'll say 'Thank you Tenny, for caring enough to protect me from the big and the bad."
Brontë feels drawn to Brewster, and she wants to try to understand him. As she gets to know him, she learns that Brewster has a photographic memory and he loves poetry. On their second date, they meet to go on a hike and have a picnic. Brontë accidentally sprains her ankle, but after Brewster performed some reflexology, it healed quickly. But Brewster suddenly began to limp. Something similar happened to Tennyson after he got to know Brewster better. The twins wonder, what's going on?
In his eyes, I could see the battle going on inside home. The desire to hide a terrible secret fighting with the desire to set it free.
Bruiser is very different from Neal Shusterman's other novels. I think it makes the reader think about family, friendship and what it means to really care about someone.
Rating: 9 out of 10 stars
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