Book Review | The Pain Eater

Following the death his father, a strange, cat-like creature shows up at Michael’s house that can absorb his pain--both physical and mental. He grows accustomed to the creature and begins to even enjoy the sensation of it relieving his pain, which leads him into a terrible downward spiral of self-harm.

The Pain Eater by Kyle Muntz is a bold allegory about a dysfunctional family and the self-destructive methods people sometimes use to handle trauma and grief.

I’m going to come out and say that the characters are unlikeable, but there’s a flawed earnestness to them that make them feel all the more believable.

However, there were two glaring details that didn’t make logical sense to me and I found immensely distracting.

1) Never once did it occur to Michael to take the cat he was supposedly caring for to vet even though it was extremely sick. Maybe if it was acting semi-feral and he was unable to catch it I would understand.

2) This is something that may be trivial to some, but as a millennial otaku, it really bugged me. It seems like the story takes place around 2009 since PS3s had just recently come out. However, Michael somehow magically rewatches Evangelion over and over again when it was an anime that was notoriously difficult to find (even on less savory sites) or obtain DVD copies of due to licensing issues with Gainax, until 2019. I'm not even kidding. You can read an article about it here.

Nitpicking aside, The Pain Eater is still a delightfully bizarre, gross, and raw examination of grief for readers with a strong stomach. Thank you, NetGalley and CLASH Books, for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Book Details:

Publication Date : June 5, 2022

Publisher : CLASH Books

IBSN: 1955904065

Pages : 264

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