Brawler

Gr 10 Up—Eddie MacIntyre is a champion wrestler living with his mom in suburban Harrisburg, PA. While Dad is in prison, Eddie's mom struggles to make ends meet as a waitress. A middling student, Eddie sees wrestling as his only ticket to college. But he's got anger issues. And he's known as a cruel and dirty competitor. When he loses his cool during a match and breaks a referee's jaw, he knows that all his dreams are snuffed out. But within a few days of being expelled from school over the incident, he's approached by a shadowy figure and invited to join a circuit of illegal, underground fighters who brawl without rules for an online gambling audience. He'll train with Khajee, a high school junior and kickboxer, who lives with her uncle Than, a former muay thai boxer dying from diabetes and lung disease. Frequent descriptions of the illegal bouts highlight extreme violence; these passages are also long and detailed and can be difficult to follow for readers with little background in fighting. Some plot threads—comparison between Eddie's intermittent Catholicism and Khajee's traditional Buddhism, his "prophetic visions" of fight outcomes—are only vaguely developed. The ending is rushed and leaves more questions than answers. The subject will likely attract some reluctant readers. Though it's clear the fight organizers are criminals and Eddie's motivation is unresolved resentment of his violent father, the subject matter will be disturbing for many.