The Pain Eater

Gr 10 Up—Maddy Malone has a secret that is destroying her. Raped by a gang of boys in the spring of her freshman year, she lives with daily shame as she begins 10th grade. Suffering silently, she often retreats into the privacy of her backyard tree house. When one of her attackers shows up in her English class, Maddy's anxiety heightens, and she resorts to discreetly piercing her hand with her fingernails and burning her thighs with lit cigarettes. During a class collective novel-writing assignment, her fellow students compose a story that eerily parallels Maddy's own world. After finally building up the courage to reveal her trauma to friends, she starts to heal, gaining confidence and insight. While creating her chapter for the class novel, Maddy must decide how far she is willing to go and how she can use the power of fiction to challenge the status quo. Although disturbing images are evoked throughout the narrative, Goobie approaches the topic of rape with sensitivity and care. Her depiction of peer pressure, teenage angst, and bullying brings to light serious issues that fuel high school students' choices. Though the characterization sometimes falls flat and relationships within the book are not fully developed, Goobie's writing is nevertheless absorbing. Surfacing an important problem that is too often overlooked, the author succeeds in making readers think deeply about the implications of malicious teenage actions and the suffering of victims.