Review: The Reluctant Bully by Gary Rivera

A second thought-provoking Smoochie adventure, The Reluctant Bully: A Smoochie Family Story by Gary Rivera continues Madeline’s journey as she navigates the high hopes and dramatic lows of middle school.

With her victorious lunch-money treasure hunt still fresh in her mind, Madeline, aka Lynn/aka Smoochie, turns her attention to the worrying drama going on in her brother’s life. B hasn’t been himself lately – he’s quieter and more disconnected, and it seems like one of his high school classmates, Jordan, may be responsible for the shift. As Smoochie asks more questions and digs deeper into the history of her friends and family members in relation to bullying, she begins to see a bigger picture of this pervasive problem.

Although she tries to help her brother regain his happiness and gain a new perspective, she discovers an even more complicated truth about friendship, brotherhood, and the emotional weight of suffering in silence. Navigating obstacles in her own friendships and her best friend’s boy troubles, Madeline is a determined force to be reckoned with, and a compassionate detective on every case of hurt feelings and unfair treatment.

The flashbacks to Miguel’s challenging experiences in the 1980s and Mr. Cavanaugh’s origin story are clear nods to the intergenerational nature of trauma and bullying, as the latter represents an attitude of dominance, violence, and cruelty that can be passed and spread like a virus from student to classmate, brother to best friend, or father to son. Countering those challenging scenes are the multiple instances of older teenagers standing up for younger kids, which stand as heartening reminders that role models can be found in unexpected places, and that there is more kindness in the world than cruelty.

The plot is also rich with instances of casual wisdom regarding the unfairness of judging others, the importance of forgiveness, and the power of empathy, even when you’re hurting: “People can be mean for any reason.” While the title correctly places bullying as the focus of the storyline, Rivera artfully includes other subtle messaging on self-confidence, discipline, abuse, cultural pride, trauma, grief, and feelings of isolation.

There are certain technical tics in the writing, including unnecessary reiterations of the subject, overly procedural narration, and repetitive expositional details about multiple characters. The unusually formal tone of the prose feels somewhat inconsistent with a middle-school narrator, particularly the absence of contractions: “I wanted to watch a movie to cheer me up but felt I did not deserve one.” Generally, the author tells readers more than they need, and 350 pages is a bit intensive for the genre, whether middle grade or young adult. A basic proofreading sweep is also recommended to identify missing punctuation, extra words, and other instances of inconsistent editing.

Those issues aside, the tangential stream-of-consciousness style does make the prose feel more juvenile and disorganized, reflecting the wide-eyed perspective of a young person before the jaded filters of maturity set in. A trimmed-down version of this novel would highlight the core messages more clearly, and keep the pace engaging throughout, but as it stands, Rivera delivers a classic gem of adolescent wisdom with this emotionally expressive read.