The Pain Eater

The Pain Eater by Beth Goobie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

WARNING – This book contains issues that may be triggering such as rape, bullying, self harm.
Note – If you are curious look up the name REHTAEH PARSONS
Note – This book is written by a Canadian author

This book was recommended to me by a lady at the library who does several book clubs, does reading for the White Pine accreditation in Ontario and the list goes on (... and she has great taste in books). I chose to use this book for my G/r Top 100 YA because I didn't like any of the books that were listed and so I subbed this one in because it was YA. I'm going to start off by saying that I have never read a book like this and that was so REFRESHING. The concept of the book was interesting in that the main idea was for a class to work together and make a compiled novel by each classmate writing a chapter. The astounding thing was, I have no idea (absolutely none) how they chose the subject of the book and it for the most part flowed very well. Other topics come up in the book that I mentioned in the warning notice above. I don't want to give anything away. I will say that Goobie gave these issues deeper meaning because when you are reading the book you are right there. You are a witness, a player, a victim and a bystander. Also, for a person that is curious as to why people self harm, this book provides a very good example that is 'easy' to understand for those that cannot even grasp the idea of why or how people can do that to themselves. This book deserves all 5 stars and maybe even an extra for good measure, it was that good a story line/ plot and well written. I am definitely going to be checking out other Goobie books.


View all my reviews