The Pain, My Mother, Sir Tiffy, Cyber Boy & Me
Michael Gerard Bauer
Maggie has three realistic goals for the year. Unfortunately, her past seems to be halting any sort of progression – she’s going to need to step outside what she thinks, and think about other people too.
This novel takes both its name and its conversational writing style In the ‘tradition’ of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. Now, if you’ll remember my review, I didn’t particularly like that novel, I preferred The Haters. Instead of sex and penis jokes, this novel is filled with puns. If you love puns, you might love the way the novel is written. For me, I could have done with less humour and more substance.
Although the different chapters purport to reveal and hide things in equal measure to how Maggie’s life goes positive to negative, I found the progression of the novel slow and the storyline typical. There are better novels out there that will give teenage readers more to bite into.
I have faith from other reviews that this author’s other offerings are better – maybe I will pick up The Running Man in my spare time if it crosses my path. I’m not going to seek it out though, enough teenage fiction for me.
No outlasting love for me here. Maggie is a self-absorbed brat that although her character develops throughout the novel, for me she never became more likeable. For that, I’m going to give it 3 stars. The main reason I read it was so that I could leave it for my niece to read and I didn’t have to bring it home with me! BCID – 352–14075986.
