Bruised by Tanya Boteju (ARC Review)

Title: Bruised
Author: Tanya Boteju
Type: Fiction
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Publisher: Simon Pulse (Simon & Schuster)
Date published: March 23, 2021

A complimentary digital copy of this book was kindly provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

To Daya Wijesinghe, a bruise is a mixture of comfort and control. Since her parents died in an accident she survived, bruises have become a way to keep her pain on the surface of her skin so she doesn’t need to deal with the ache deep in her heart.

So when chance and circumstances bring her to a roller derby bout, Daya is hooked. Yes, the rules are confusing and the sport seems to require the kind of teamwork and human interaction Daya generally avoids. But the opportunities to bruise are countless, and Daya realizes that if she’s going to keep her emotional pain at bay, she’ll need all the opportunities she can get.

The deeper Daya immerses herself into the world of roller derby, though, the more she realizes it’s not the simple physical pain-fest she was hoping for. Her rough-and-tumble teammates and their fans push her limits in ways she never imagined, bringing Daya to big truths about love, loss, strength, and healing.

⤖ My Review ⬻

Going into Bruised by Tanya Boteju, it was front of mind for me that I had read the author’s previous book (and debut) Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens and found out my overarching experience with it was that I resonated with and enjoyed reading about the side characters more so than the main character.

I wasn’t sure if this was a one-off or not, but in either case, I did like the book overall for the side characters (as I said), how the author described them and brought them to life, as well as the subject matter and what happened in the story itself. As I started reading Bruised, I wasn’t sure if the same thing would happen again…but I will say that I was really intrigued by the cover and the fact that rollerskating would have a prominent role since I personally got into rollerskating myself just a few months ago.

Once I was a few chapters in, I found that I had a hard time connecting with the main character. I wasn’t too surprised since this had happened to me with Tanya Boteju ‘s previous book as well and since I have actually had this happen with a number of young adult contemporary books recently.

This is no fault of the author’s but rather a case of me oversaturating my reading palette by reading too many young adult contemporary books too close together…or maybe I’ve just reached a certain point in my life where I can’t connect with characters in their teens unless they’re in a fantasy setting (i.e. set in worlds or situations where the characters’ ages are forgettable, at least for me).

In either case, the same thing happened with Bruised that happened to me with Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens where I was more intrigued and felt more engaged by the side characters than the main character. And in Bruised‘s particular case, I think this might have been again because of how the side characters were written and also because the side characters were a little older than the main character (ranging from a few years older to a decade or two older). My two reasons for not resonating with the main characters could very well be working hand-in-hand in this manner.

All in all, I will say that I did enjoy following the main character’s journey from start to finish, especially when interacting with the other characters they met along the way. I also really liked how Tanya Boteju ‘s writing has developed since the first book and how the descriptions and story played out in Bruised–I’m curious to see what the author will write next!

⤖ About the Author ⬻

Tanya Boteju is a teacher and writer living on unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations (Vancouver, BC). Part-time, she teaches English to clever and sassy young people. The rest of her time, she writes and procrastinates from writing. Her novel, Kings, Queens, and In-

Betweens (Simon & Schuster, 2019), was named a Top Ten Indie Next Pick by the American Booksellers Association, as well as selected for the American Librarian Association 2020 Rainbow List. Her next YA novel, Bruised (Simon & Schuster, 2021), has been selected as a Gold Standard book by the Junior Library Guild. In both teaching and writing, she is committed to positive, diverse representation. Visit her at tanyaboteju.com.