I am torn. This is such an important topic to discuss, and unfortunately a very current one. I was expecting mentions of sexual abuse and self harm, and usually I'm not very squeamish, but for me the story was far too detailed in certain moments, and I couldn't continue reading. I'm certain others won't have the same issues that I did, but at this moment unfortunately I have to DNF.

Difficult story to read, but once started will be had to put down. Timely, too. I'm thinking this would make a great read for kids 12 and up, with maybe class discussion of the story. It's written very well and the characters were all interesting and life-like. Plot was just too real. Painful story. Kudos to Beth Goobie for taking on a difficult topic.

This book was beautiful beyond words and reminded me so much of Speak. A great book that depicted rape, sexual assault, and rape culture.

What a poignant and powerful piece of literature. This book chronicles the aftermath of a brutal rape of a 15 year old girl named Maddy. Maddy withdraws and remains silent for months, feeling like a piece of her soul has been removed from her. While reading this book, I felt an overwhelming sense of loneliness through Maddy. Goobie was absolutely great and making you deeply care for this character.

The way Goobie portrays the aftermath of such horrible violence, how the victim can blame themself, how others can even blame the victim at all, is astonishing, stunning, and unsettling. Even more than that is the triumph of Maddy coming back to herself with time and encouragement. Ultimately, this is a powerful book that will make you think of it long after you’ve turned the final page.

Drawing from a childhood of trauma and a self-proclaimed “fragmented” psyche, Canadian poet and author Beth Goobie presents "The Pain Eater," a relevant story of a teenage girl who is swallowed by the emotional effects of sexual assault and finds a way to confront her fears.

After being attacked by four masked classmates on her way home from a school production during the last school year, fourteen-year-old Maddy Malone finds herself with a deep-kept secret and a hollowed, introverted personality. In an attempt to bury her shame and fear, Maddy retreats into herself and begins digging her fingernails into the backs of her hands and burning her inner thighs with cigarette butts. Maddy is determined to keep her secret, and pushes away her friends, parents, and sister who have noticed the change in Maddy.

With the arrival of the new school year, Maddy takes her resolution to hide into the hallways with the hope that she can remain invisible. As days pass, Maddy is able to identify three of her attackers, and finds that she shares an English class with two. The class begins to write a story about a teenage girl named Farang who “eats” the pain of her fellow villagers, and as each student presents his chapter, Farang’s struggle becomes more and more like Maddy’s until Maddy’s secret is on the brink of coming out.

Beth Goobie utilizes a frame story variation throughout "The Pain Eater" that uses Maddy’s class story of Farang to explore Maddy’s feelings more openly. The emotional similarities written between Maddy and Farang are made suspiciously obvious. While Farang is unallowed to voice her desires, Maddy is unwilling to talk about her secret. When Farang is finally free from having to endure the pain of her community, Maddy is finally willing to confront her attackers and accept support from the people who care about her. Goobie advances the connections between Maddy’s and Farang’s emotions until Maddy finds the courage to stand again, addressing a tender topic with a strong approach to show that sometimes, a person may find healing in their own way and in their own time.

3.5 stars. This gut-wrenching young adult novel was a fresh approach to a hard topic. After Maddy is raped by three boys at her school, she tells no one, closing in on herself, and it is only through a class assignment in her English class the following year that fiction and reality begin to awaken her again. The back and forth between fiction and Maddy's story was an effective and creative story-telling technique. The only thing that kept taking me out of the story was the reaction of Maddy's family. It was obvious there was something serious going on with Maddy, and her loving family accepted her wish of not pursuing it, even after she had a rather extreme reaction to her father touching her. I found that implausible. But this quick read kept me reading into the wee hours of the night and rooting for Maddy!

This book is an incredibly painful read because of the traumatic events that Maddy has lived through (and continues to relive). Maddy has become a shell of herself ever since she was raped—she barely speaks, never makes eye contact, and causes herself physical pain in order to block out the emotional turmoil she’s constantly experiencing. She’s tried so hard to forget—but she can’t.

The book follows Maddy’s emotional journey and healing, and her story is paired with a class project: a short story that the the class is writing together (each student writes a chapter) about a girl who is forced to “eat” (basically, endure) the pain of the people of her village. The parallels are obvious, and the story soon becomes an allegory for Maddy’s situation. She is expected to suffer in silence, threatened with further reprisal if she speaks. The story is painful but powerful.

I did have a couple of small issues with the book. First of all, Maddy views the idea of seeking psychological help very negatively (she doesn’t want to be viewed as “crazy”), and her opinion doesn’t evolve in any way. Instead, she finds healing through art. While I do think art can have therapeutic properties, I was saddened by the negative portrayal of counseling and I had a hard time with the idea that only art would be necessary to help her find healing. The second issue I had was with the fact that the teacher seemed to be overly permissive with her students’ story—I felt like some things were expressed in the story that were pretty inappropriate in a school setting and I didn’t understand why the teacher wouldn’t address it more.

Overall, I found this to be a powerful read, full of pain but also portraying hope for healing. I give it 4/5 Stars.

This book was far too grim for me, dealing with the gang rape and subsequent self-harm and suffering of a young high school girl. It's a topic that is handled far more subtlety and skillfully in Speak or Luckiest Girl Alive. This story is too bleak and unremitting for me to get through it.

Maddie was gang raped after a play and told nobody about it. One school year later, she has figured out three of the five boys who raped her and has also started to harm herself. Now she has to sit in English class with two of her attackers. The class gets a longterm assignment: together, they are to write a collaborative story. Thus, the fictional character of The Pain Eater emerged and throughout the assignment the lines between fact and fiction blur. It was interesting to see how differently the students viewed The Pain Eater.

This is a powerful, moving and intense story about rape culture, victim-blaming, (cyber-) bullying, why rape victims don't speak up and also why they should.

I was very moved whilst reading this book, we get to see Maddy's battles, her fears; the sadness was overwhelming. We see how she pushes her loved ones away and how she suffers. How the students at school call her a "slut" and say that "she asked for it". I felt with Maddy and was also enraged at those students.
This is book is written in a simple and comprehensible way and that makes this must-read book more accessible, not only to teenage readers.

After Maddy is raped by a group of boys from her class, her whole world shuts down. She pushes away her friends and family, goes almost completely silent, and gives up on the artwork that she used to love. Instead of pretending like nothing happened, though, the boys spread rumors about Maddy, claiming that she sleeps with everyone. With her reputation in shambles and the constant fear of having to face her attackers every day, Maddy finds it difficult to cope and turns to self-destructive means of handling her pain. But then an English assignment leads her to discover that maybe hiding her pain isn't the best way to put herself back together. This book wastes no time jumping into the horrendous act forced upon Maddy, telling us in the first sentence that she's been raped. But instead of going into graphic detail about the physical aspects of the rape, Goobie focuses on the effect on Maddy's mental state. We get to experience all of her thoughts in the months after the attack, showing how she grows and becomes a stronger person because of what happened to her. Goobie does an amazing job of giving each character a distinct voice, making them feel like people you know in real life. Maddy's journey is difficult to read, and there's a good chance you'll cry at least twice, but following her to the end is so worth it.

Wow.

That pretty much describes everything I have to say about this book.

I never go much for this type of books because they make me a bit uncomfortable. But this book was incredibly amazing! It was emotionally a heavy read. But it was so realistic, so powerful, so sad and most of all, so cleverly told! And that’s the way I didn’t want to do a synopsis, other than the one we have from Goodreads. I started reading the book without knowing more than that and it just blew my mind. And that’s what I want to happen with you guys too!

This story talks about rape in a very unique way. The story is slightly inspired by the rape and suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons. And right in the beginning we know what happened to Maddy Malone. A fifteen years old girl that was raped by three boys from her school, while a fourth held her down, and a fifth boy stood by watching and did nothing.

After that we see Maddy’s life changing, we see her feelings, her battles and her fears. She refuses to talk hoping that it will go away, she pushes away everyone that cares about her, tries to go unnoticed. She is publicly shamed with the so current phrases: “she was asking for it”, “she even liked it”, “she is a slut”, all the things that make the victim unable to speak up. Some of the phases people who suffered it may experience.

But here’s where it gets interesting. In this book, we have a story inside a story. In Maddy’s english class, the class is given an assignment to collaborate on a novel by writing one chapter each – The Pain Eater – followed by a group discussion. The story will have many similarities to how Maddy feels and some of the chapters will be undoubtedly about her.

The main thing about The Pain Eater, is the character created by the class. She is a girl who is sentenced to literally eat the pain of the village on every full moon. But the rest of them diverge. And every persons sees the Pain Eater differently.

I really enjoyed the writing in this book, it was very accessible and simple without losing it’s strength. It made me cry and it made me angry and afraid. It shows, above all, the victims side very clearly. The why they don’t speak up, how far can a raper go, how they sometimes start doubting themselves, how their soul is taken away in that moment. But it also talks about why they should speak up, why they should trust their loved ones and that nothing good comes from hiding.

I really likes Maddy and I really sympathized for her. I really felt her pain and I loved how in the end something so tiny as a story and some friends can contribute so much to help a person.

This is definitely a must read. It’s a very simple story but it’s wonderfully told and I would recommend it to everybody.

This was a very difficult read, and all the more important because of it's difficulty.

A small disclaimer is required here: This read includes sexual violence, rape, and victim shaming. This a trigger warning for the above topics.

The Pain Eater, follows Maddy Malone in the aftermath of a gang rape which occurs after a school production of Our Town. As the reader, we experience Maddy's pain, shame, and anger about what has happened to her.

I found this a difficult book to read. There are no graphic descriptions of sexual violence, but Goobie's heartrendingly honest descriptions of Maddy's pain, often turned my stomach. A show of how strong the writing truly is. However, despite these heartbreaking depictions of pain, the novel was very accessible. Goobie uses simple language, and effective metaphors throughout; making the core issues seem that much more realistic and relateable. I suspect, even to someone who has never dealt with any of these heavy topics before.

Additionally, Goobie adds realism to this tale by pulling in references to Rehtaeh Parsons and how her life continues to impact young women experiencing sexual assault, rape, or sexual violence.

The only area where Goobie lacked realism - and I suspect this might have been intentional - is in the reaction Maddy Malone's family has when she finally reveals she has been raped. They immediately understand, and want to champion her recovery and her going to the police. Many families experience doubt, shame, and even anger when in this situation. Or, simply do not understand at first. However, I think it was Goobie's intention to show a reader (and perhaps victims) that disclosing to one's family is important, and will ultimately help in the end. To that effect, I loved that Goobie choose to have Maddy's family and friends immediately understand, emphasize, and champion her. It may not be perfect realism, but in the realm of The Pain Eater was crucial to the story.

I think the topics covered in the Pain Eater - however difficult to discuss, stomach, or understand - are crucial for society to consider. This is why I recommend this read for anyone, but most importantly for young adults, and adults who have loved ones in middle school and high-school.

Maddy Malone is gang raped by classmates wearing masks in her school. She doesn't tell anyone. Why? Whenever she remembers the rape, she hurts herself so she won't feel the pain of it? How does she hurt herself? As school starts in the fall Maddy finds in her English class that two of the guys who raped her are there in her class! She doesn't think she can deal with it. In her English class, the teacher has assigned the class to each write a separate chapter and it will be made into a book. Each student will have to stand up front in class and read their chapter. The guys that raped her try to ensure that Maddy won't tell by various ways including cyber bullying. She is made out to be a slut, and will do it with anyone. In her English class, the chapters are about a 15 year old girl who is the pain eater of her village. That is the only thing she has to do eat their pain and suffer their pain. What will Maddy's chapter be about? Will she be able to do it? Will Maddy tell her family about being gang raped?

This is a novel full of sensitive issues that rarely get discussed. The author does an excellent job of writing this story about rape. It is a book that ought to be read and discussed by everyone regardless of being a young adult or adult. At times, my heart broke for Maddy. She survived her path that took her through an awful experience.

Release Date Tuesday Sep. 13th, 2016

Maddy hasn’t told any one about what that group of boys did to her. She has kept it all inside, and as the new school year starts, she shrinks further inside, especially once she begins recieving threats to keep her mouth shut.

Then a class project turns everything upside down. As the students are required to work on a collaborative novel, the narrative comes too close to Maddy’s truth, giving her the power of a voice to tell what happened to her.

TW: Rape

A very powerful book.

The Pain Eater by Beth Goobie is the current, modern Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson.

Posted Jan 20, 2017

Love this book. Recommended it to people. Highly recommend.

Maddie Malone has been a train wreck since that terrible day last March. She tries to control her nightmare pain so it does not consume her, but the only method she has found to make it bearable may consume her first. No one knows why she changed, or just how deeply-- not even herself-- but as her English class progresses on an assignment to write a collective novel, she begins to discover the missing pieces of her own story.

This was a difficult story to read, not because it was bad, but because it forces the reader not only to witness a young girl’s agony in as raw and terrible a state as it can get, but also face down aspects of victimization that are unusual to have in the forefront such as self-blame, self-destruction, and remorse. This is not just the story of Maddy’s pain, but the lingering effects and the coalescence and evolution of the many unintended individual pains surrounding her and the awful event.

Beth Goobie did a great job on this book. It is complex and tightly woven. The characters are deep and I felt I could understand them, even when they were not being nice people. The story was fresh and revealed itself over time to be full of surprising layers of meaning. The ending was perfect for the story. Overall, I really felt this was a stellar offering from Second Story Press and Beth Goobie.

A hard 4.3 stars.

I am a losing time Beth Goobie fan. She writes on the hard edge of subjects that need stories in a way that is unflinching in its approach. This book is her at her best. The way the plot was constructed made this a breathless read at times as you waited for that final moment when it would be Maddie's turn to contribute to the in-class novel. I have a number of students who will be wanting to read this.

I feel light. I was with Maddy when she was raped, and I was with her when she learned to heal - and that is a beautiful thing to witness.

I haven't read a book like this in a loooong time, Laurie Halse Anderson's "Speak" being the most obvious comparison, a Classic that it would be unfair to compare this (very good, in its own right!) contemporary novel to. Mandy was gang raped - but this isn't a book about her rape; This book taught me to heal, but it also taught me that I am not a bad person to hold on to pain, and that it's okay to be hurt for a long time. We all deal with stress and anxiety in different ways, and some can be harmful & lasting and there's no getting away from that; but you can forgive yourself. After Maddy starts to heal, she starts projecting & protecting those around her: "She'd shown courage where others had shown only fear." And she is PROUD of herself & that is so beautiful.

A book full of life lessons to hold in your heart every day, because it's the smallest act of kindness that makes Maddy feel hope again. As soon as she feels hope again, she finds determination and pride and the fire in herself that those boys ripped away from her so suddenly. When one of the boys in the group that raped her comes to apologise, she accepts his apology but wholeheartedly, irrevocably refuses to take on his pity & empathise with his pain - this is a lesson we all need to learn. "I'm not eating your pain."

Obviously the USP of this book is the parallel between the class story and Maddy's own life, and I think the allegory of the class story & Maddy's life could be a bit blatant for some people, but for me? It illustrated the coincidences of life that you find ALL THE TIME - maybe you're looking to hard for them, or maybe they show themselves to you in times of need, when you're feeling alone, but they're the hope in you finding bits of light in the rest of the universe, whether that be in your class or in strangers or in the way you treat your sister.

All in all, this was a realllllly unique book that perhaps lacked the heart-wrenching writing style of Laurie Halse Anderson, but is a really strong book that not only has the potential to help Rape victims, but if you're going through any hardship or want to empathise with someone who is, you can draw a lot from this novel.

// Thank you NetGalley and the Publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. //

It’s a worth reading book about healing. I couldn't stop reading it at all. I loved the writing project and the parallelism between Maddy y Farang.
My only issue is that there is almost no information of who was Maddy before the incident. Yes, we know she likes drawing for example. But how was her personality? How did it change? Who were her friends?
I would totally recommend this book, though!