This book is beautifully written. I loved the main character, Meg, and how the author’s prose described her confusion as she tried to figure out what was happening to her (becoming a sin eater). I wish the whole book had been focused on her and her journey, and it is in a way. But there was also some intrigue in the form of a murder mystery. I didn’t find this mystery very interesting and all mention of the queen made my eyes glaze over. This isn’t The Handmaid’s Tale meets Alice in Wonderland – that write up is weird; this is not a dystopia nor a fantasy book, it is historical fiction.
3.5 stars
ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a very interesting read. I am still not sure how I feel about it. Very unique prose. The cover is gorgeous!!

I wanted to love this book - but it just didn't catch my attention. It has an interesting premise. I think that there are patrons who will love it and I will recommend to patrons that like historical and/or fantasy.

If you follow along with my reviews and my blog, you'll know I'm an exceptional sleeper. I am happy to nod off mid-sentence or mid-movie whenever necessary, so it's rare for me to pick up something I'm willing to lose sleep over. I lost a LOT of sleep for Sin Eater, by Megan Campisi, and I have zero regrets. This book is excellent: I read it in one sitting (sorry, all other chores in my house).

May Owens lives in a just-slightly-left-of-historical Elizabethan England, where the recent religious purges and persecutions between Queen Maris (Mary) and Queen Bethany (Elizabeth I) are a constant backdrop of society. May comes from a lower middle class family, and she's orphaned with no washerwoman work available. Starving, she steals a loaf of bread and winds up in jail.

Sentences in jail range from fines to torture and hanging and depend entirely on whether you have "respectable" witnesses to vouch for you, so May is sure she's about to be hanged. Instead, she's bound with a brass collar bearing an S pendant, and has a black S tattooed on her tongue: she's sentenced to be a Sin Eater, a pariah of society who listens to the last confessions of the dying to take their sins into herself, carrying them until she dies. It's a heavy burden for a young woman, and a lifelong sentence of silence and loneliness.

May finds the current sin eater in her town, and while they don't speak she learns as much of the trade as she can by following along, until they're called to the castle and the Sin Eater refuses one of the dishes set upon the deceased's coffin. This sets off a chain of events that has May investigating a murder mystery, and discovering her own family secrets, and ultimately discovering she does have some control over her choices. The paths May travels lead her to exercise her own power in surprising ways, and to experiment with the ethics of her ancestry and her role as a sin eater in society. She's one of the most interesting characters I've read in a very long time, and her story is wonderfully subversive and feminist as she repeatedly breaks societal boundaries for women and discovers the freedom within her sentence.

Campisi took the folklore of sin eaters (yes, they were a real thing, although not as powerfully influential in life as they are here) and the Catholicism vs Anglicanism culture wars of 1500's England to a richly detailed fictional alternative. In May's Angland, sin eaters have a very specific diet as each sin has it's own specialized dish. All sin eaters are women, because Eve is the original evil in this society and women are all daughters of Eve. Because they are shunned and ignored, Campisi's sin eaters can go places and see things common folk wouldn't be able to, so May is a heroine of both tragic and powerful invisibility.

Campisi attends to every detail of Elizabethan England, and it feels like the characters are familiar enough to know and foreign enough to be fascinating, which is a perfect blend to keep a reader from putting a book down. Her writing is a lovely mix of poetic and practical, and the pacing of the book was fast. May Owens might be my newest favorite character, and I wish she had a whole series because I'm not ready to put her story away yet.

Sin Eater is a five star read: go get it asap.

I enjoyed this much more than I thought I would. This is an interesting concept, telling the story of May, a "sin eater" who symbolically takes on the sins of those at death, by eating the foots associated with each of the individual's sins. This was loosely based on a real practice that occurred in parts of rural England and I was fascinated by this bit of micro-history spun into a work of fiction. It was part historical fiction, part murder mystery, that I enjoyed. I felt that the murder mystery element and its conclusion felt a little rushed, but as a character development study as May came to terms with her role in this society, it flourished here. I also thought that the author's use of language to recreate the Elizabethan English (without it being Elizabethan English) helped enhance the time period very well. It definitely felt like it was the 16th century. Recommended for fans of historical fiction and Tudor history.

The idea of sin-eaters has always been intriguing and this book didn't disappoint. It is a well-crafted and original tale and I recommend it.

"...the more you live, the more the sinner and the saint can't be pulled apart."

"There's a certain comfort in rules. You know if you're good or you're bad. And even if you're bad, you know where you fit. You belong. But I don't want other folks rules to say if I belong anymore. I want to say for myself."

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I love historical fiction, especially around the royal times of the Tudors, Sin Eater fictionalizes the English court during the reign of The Virgin Queen. In this re-imagining the split between the religions results in a Christian based religion where Eve is the root of all evil and there is a ritual where sins must be confessed to a Sin Eater who will then consume a meal based on the sins you confessed. Each sin denotes a specific food and the Sin Eater consumes those foods from the lid of your coffin to absolve you of them. She then accepts those sins on her soul, which basically means no one wants this job!

May is a young girl from a poor family who steals a loaf of bread and is sentenced to become a Sin Eater. She is ripped from her life and forced to apprentice under the local Sin Eater, where she must attend sin Recitations and learn the foods which represent them. Sin Eaters tongues are branded with an S and they are not allowed to speak. When the Sin Eaters are called to the castle and a food appears on a coffin of a sin not confessed, her Sin Eater master refuses to eat it and is sentenced to death. She then decides to figure out what exactly is going on in the castle to avenge her master.

The story is full of intrigue, back stabbing and revenge just like any good story in a royal court and also adds a dash of witch craft. May has a lovely character arc from a meek girl sentenced to a horrible life into a strong woman who will not let anyone rule her. Learning about sin eating (which turns out was a real thing - thanks Wikipedia) was really interesting and I loved the detail with which it and the faith surrounding it was explained in this novel.

Thanks to Netgalley and Atria books for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Young May, orphaned and hungry, steals a loaf of bread. For her crime she is sentenced to become a "sin eater". Upon their deathbeds, people confess their sins to her and as she eats the associated foods at their funerals, they are free to pass to the afterlife relieved of these sins. When an elder sin eater refuses to eat a food for an undeclared sin and sentenced to death, May takes over her responsibilities. When the same food appear at another funeral, again for an undeclared sin, May sets out to solve the mystery of why. Although shunned by the people in her community, she'll find her way into your heart.

I had such high hope for this title based on the synopsis. Unfortunately after several attempts it’s just not clicking for me. The pacing, for me, is quite slow and I am unable to connect to the story as a result.

Every now and then I come across a book that is totally different from anything else I’ve ever read. This phenomenon is becoming rare, and that’s largely due to the fact that I’ve read a lot of books in my 35 years.

Megan Campisi’s Sin Eater is the first book to make that list in several years, and because of that, I know that this story will stay with me for a long time.

A lot of the media buzz surrounding this book’s release drew comparisons to The Handmaid’s Tale, and I have to disagree. Yes, there are some similarities in the way that women are treated as little more than chattel at times, but this book is much easier to read than Atwood’s iconic story.

That’s not to say that this is in any way an easy book, or that it’s simple. Far from it. Campisi’s debut is both a brutal coming of age and an empowering tale of self-discovery. This is simply an easier book to read because, throughout it, I never gave up hope that it could end well for the main character, whereas in The Handmaid’s Tale my reading progress was dogged from page to page by heavy-hitting dread that everything would end very, very badly.

In this alternate Elizabethan history, Sin Eaters are women tasked with absorbing the sins of others, absolving them of their crimes before death and taking their sins unto themselves. They do this by eating a spread of food laid out over the coffins of the dead, each dish symbolizing one misdeed or another. For example, deer heart is for murder, and when one shows up on the coffin of a noblewoman without her having confessed to that crime, the mystery kicks off.

What follows is an engrossing, riveting story that was so addicting, I read it in a single sitting. One of the things that makes this book so compulsive is the tension in the story. There is very little downtime. It feels like the MC is running from one near-catastrophe to another, which leaves the reader desperate to keep flipping the pages.

Is the queen involved in the conspiracy? What about the man angling to be her lover? I had endless questions throughout, and I loved the way that Campisi dropped the MC into this new role as a Sin Eater and had her claw the mystery apart with such single-minded determination.

I highly recommend this for anyone wanting something different.

Sin Eater is a fascinating historical fiction that touches on a real role from history that I hadn't really heard of before. Campisi makes it clear that this book takes a basis in reality and crafts this into an entirely fictional story with liberties taken and it was such an interesting one! It's a bit on the slower side and there's an additional plot point in this book that I didn't expect and lost a bit of my interest, but overall this was really an interesting book with some great themes!

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Sin Eater was such an odd and unexpected story. This is a story about May who is forced to become a Sin Eater as punishment for her crime of stealing bread. I hadn't heard of the idea of Sin Eaters before this book, but it is apparently based on a real role that once existed, though the author is very clear in her author's note that little is actually known and most of this novel is entirely fictionalized. Nonetheless, I definitely still looked it up to find out more about it!

Sin Eater is one of those books that has a very stark, almost cold atmosphere that sort of prevents the reader from ever feeling too comfortable in it. It depicts a world that is harsh and unforgiving, especially since it is centered so heavily around sins and the wrongs that people do throughout their lives, but at the same time there was a often a very subtle thread of dark humor that ran beneath the surface of the narrative, a sort of mocking, sarcastic acknowledgment of the tragedy and struggles that exist in all classes, and that at the end of the day, we all day and have our own sins to consider at the end of our lives.

We follow the POV of May as she slowly adjusts to her new dark and lonely life as a Sin Eater. Through May, we are able to delve into this role and understand just what it might have entailed, from the fear and shame that other people when you are around to the invisibility that encompasses the life of a Sin Eater since they aren't allowed to talk to or acknowledge anyone else--in fact, the only time they are meant to talk is when they recite their ritual words and acknowledgments when hearing the sins of the dying and then relaying them to whoever is to prepare the food for the eating at the funeral.

I found myself really engaged with May's story and enjoyed following her journey as she slowly learned to become more comfortable in her position (as comfortable as can be, given what her new life entails), as well as how she described the different people, places, and situations she encountered. It took me a little while to fully connect with her character due to the tone her narration conveyed, but by the end I was able to find a stronger connection.

I particularly liked how Campisi managed to touch on and explore so many different themes and major issues through a book with such a relatively simple premise. Some of the biggest themes explored are that of social class issues, culture, family, and even those relating to gender roles. May herself is from a low class, yet moving the role of a Sin Eater tends to push her down even further, though at the same time she is able to move into the upper classes as a silent observer as she takes the dyings' confessions, which allows for an understanding and analysis of the workings of the upper class from a new perspective. This is also how May sort of stumbles into a situation much bigger than she could have ever anticipated and that leads to even more intrigue.

Overall, I've given Sin Eater four stars! As I briefly mentioned, there was a bit of disconnect at times with May in the beginning and with the tone of the narrative, but overall I was really intrigued by the premise and rather enjoyed this one.

Megan Campisi has written an incredible debut novel; it's dark, eerie and harsh...its everything you want in an altered Historical Fiction story.

The main character's role is based on an actual occupation during the18th and 19th century in Wales and Scotland...she is a "Sin Eater".

Quickly stated, "The Sin Eater" was hired to perform a ritual cleansing of sins from the recently deceased. This was done through the eating of bread and ale. Absolutely fascinating and horrifying, the sins would then become forgiven and the Sin Eater would now own them. This tradition continued up into the 1900's, the last known sin Eater died in England in 1906.
In this story, the author has created an altered Elizabethan Era; it's a dark, woeful place, where life has no value. Illness, corruption, and death abounds, the Sin Eater knows no rest.
This book wants for nothing...other than for the reader to become lost in its originality and funereal darkness.
5⭐
Thank you to NetGalley, Atria Books and the author Ms. Megan Campisi for the opportunity to read this Advanced Readers Copy of "Sin Eater". The opinions expressed in this review are mine alone.

Sadly this wasn't for me at all, the concept sounded good and i do love reading historical fiction but there was times i just wanted to put it down.With that said i want to thank NetGalley for letting me read and review it.

This was SUCH an interesting read! I had only learned of the true existence of sin eaters with the narrative of this book and it is a terribly intriguing topic. The writing was wonderful and done in such a way as to effectively evoke the time setting of the narrative, which was both impressive and endearing. I liked this book so much that it was one of those rare cases where I felt that it was maybe a little too short. I could have done with more detail and more information...more story.

The premise was interesting to me from the get go and was presented in a way that was gripping, interesting, and entertaining. The parallels to Tudor England were fun and enjoyable. (It certainly didn't hurt that Tudor England happens to be my favorite historical time and place.) The fact that very few characters had actual names was an interesting approach, but seemed appropriate for May's character. It added a little bit of whimsy to the narrative and I found it to be something that put a little additional smile on my face.

May herself was interesting and sympathetic. Her circumstances were certainly harrowing and it was interesting to watch her navigate her sudden shift of living. Admittedly though, I wanted things to move at a slower and more detailed pace. The transition between May's arrival at the home of the Sin Eater and her movement into taking on the profession solo was a bit too short. It felt a little jarring. Similarly, the merging of the sin eater world and the royal court just didn't feel super smooth and the tangential storylines needed a bit more meat.

However, the story flowed well and I found myself not wanting to put the book down. I would not mind this being expanded with a sequel or companion novel. (I was particularly interested in the perspective of the Country Mouse.) Will I be reading more of Megan Campisi's work? Absolutely.

I find the story behind this book completely fascinating. Fated for an isolated life, sin eaters were destined to roam their communities, shunned, unseen, not to be spoken to or acknowledged except by those ready to cross from this life to the next life. Destined to fulfill the service of absolving the dying of their sins, they absorb the sins by eating food assigned from the confessions of the dying. And so it is for 14 year old May Owens. Sentenced to life as a sin eater after she is caught stealing a loaf of bread, May now must learn the trade from the only other sin eater in the region. Early in her newfound trade, May and the other sin eater are called to the Queen’s palace to attend a palace official’s last confession. When they are called back for the eating, they are shocked to see a deer’s heart on the coffin. A deer’s heart indicates the dead individual confessed to killing a member of the royal family. Only problem is the recently departed never confessed to such a crime. Completely baffled, the older sin eater is frozen and refuses to eat the heart. She is jailed, and May is left to eat the meal on her own. Knowing the fate of the other sin eater, May vows to solve this mystery, in the hopes she can save the older sin eater’s life. May is a perfect protagonist. A vulnerable young woman, poorly educated, thrown into a life in which she is destined to be deprived of all the basic needs and wants in life, May must relearn how to survive. This story presents as a mystery, but it is actually much more complex, as May embarks on a journey of self discovery and making her own way in a world where everyone has decided she is worth less than nothing. Aided along the way by a rag tag group of societies degenerates, May sets out to change the rules of the game. It actually ends up being very heartwarming. Thank you to Netgalley for the copy in exchange for an honest review.

“In the end it’s this: the metal pushing through my shift, pushing pictures into my head of the brown stain on the blade digging into my guts, spilling my insides onto a block. The blade sawing at my hips until the bones give way and my legs are dragged off for dogs. My head stuck on a spike and posted on the castle gate so crows eat my eyes and lips.”

“The ground moves again, this time in a sudden jolt. I feel a smack against my temple. I lick my lips and taste cold dirt. There’s a white mist rising from my lips. Mayhap it’s my soul fleeing my body. My soul melting away into the air. “

This just wasn’t for me. I made it to the 35% point. Up until then there had been a lot of atmosphere, colorful images and fervent prose, but very little plot. Since I didn’t think the writing in the rest of the book would be any more to my taste, I gave up. A little advice, you cannot use the word mayhap over 90 times in any book.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

Sin Eater is set in the 16th century and tells the story of 14-year-old May who is condemned to be a sin eater after she is caught stealing bread.. Sin Eaters eat foods representing the sins that the dying confess and carry on their sins for them.  May is unique character and I found her punishment of becoming a sin-eater interesting to follow. Throughout the story,  May goes to someone’s house who was dying, listening to their sins, and then eating the foods to carry on their sins for them.  I  did find some of  the 16th century English language a bit difficult at times but I enjoyed this book overall. To be perfectly honest I chose this book on NetGalley because I was intrigued by the cover. I'm happy to say the story was just as intriguing.

3.5 rounded up to 4 Stars

This book came on my radar via a NetGalley email inviting me to read the book. Otherwise, I think I would have overlooked this. I just found the email. It spoke of a "topsy turvy version of Elizabethan England with characters reminiscent of Queen Elizabeth I, Robert Dudley, Mary Seymour and others." Now that I am re-reading this email, it helps answer some of my mild confusion while reading this book. I am a British monarchy buff, so initially I was wondering who Queen Bethany and Queen Maris were. I kind of figured out that they meant Tudor queens (and half-sisters) Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Mary, but thought perhaps the main character Meg Owens spoke a different dialect of English.

For some reason I had been putting off reading this book, but looking for something different I finally picked it up and was surprised to find myself seriously drawn in. I connected with the sadness and extreme loneliness of Meg Owens. She's all alone in her house, parents both deceased at the age of 14. She gets thrown in jail for stealing a loaf of bread. Instead of receiving a death sentence, she's branded a Sin Eater. A heavy link chain with an "S" pendant gets locked around her neck by the court recorder, and her tongue gets tattooed with an "S". In shock and confusion she gets let out onto the street where passerby give her a wide berth, recognizing the trappings of a Sin Eater. If she gets too close people bless themselves for protection or might even be compelled to throw stones at her. She doesn't know where to go. When she attempts to go back to her abandoned home, the neighbors make it clear she's not wanted. The branding of a Sin Eater is all that it takes to get shunned. By following the smell of dung that signifies the wrong side of town, she stumbles upon the cottage of the elder Sin Eater.

What is a Sin Eater? When someone is going to die, the Sin Eater gets summoned by a messenger. Under normal conditions, the Sin Eater never speaks, but only at the ritual of hearing someone's sins. The person that is dying counts off each sin, which is matched by a kind of food. Those particular food items are brought to the Sin Eater to eat, which signifies the taking on of those sins so that the deceased is cleansed of sin. If the person dies before the Sin Eater can hear the confession, there is a standard array of food to be consumed by the Sin Eater. Meg follows her elder Sin Eater around on foot and learns the ropes. At first she is exhausted from malnutrition. However, one of the few benefits of this "job" is that she will never go hungry, and soon she is getting extra skin on those bones.

I was enraptured with this story, ironically enough, until a Sin Eating job came up at the castle. It was here that Meg encountered The Queen and a rather unsavory cast of characters with strange nicknames such as The Painted Pig, Willow Tree, Mush Face, Fair Hair, and Black Fingers. In the parallel universe of The Tudor court, you can match up easily at least one of these to the true historical figure, but I found these names quite confusing to follow. They are names Meg came up with to easily identify these court members. Unfortunately, these names persisted to the end of the book and only caused a disconnect for me. There was also a pivotal event where a deer's heart was left on top of a coffin in the castle, which led to a mystery to unravel. This mystery was way too dragged out for me, and involved all these court members I just mentioned.

In summation, I truly enjoyed the simplicity and inner strength of Meg's character, but felt like the story went a bit too far off the rails during the court intrigue part of the tale. At the beginning of the story I felt like I was on my way to a 5 Star read, but felt a bit detatched towards the end.

This was a very interesting story about a time when different people weren't accepted. I enjoyed the atmosphere and the setting of the story and the fantasy elements of the tale. The characters were very engrossing and I had to finish this all in one sitting as I couldn't put it down. The only issue I had with this one was I think it could have been slightly shorter.

I really enjoyed this book’s unique premise. I had not heard of “sin eating” and I learned a LOT reading this. About foods that were eaten in the 1500s/1600s and some of the customs of the times. I am not sure this is true historical fiction, in that I am not sure the setting is intended to be based on fact - the royalty mentioned were certainly not historical figures I had heard of - however, the custom of sin eating was real. I enjoyed May as the protagonist and her plight tugged at my heart strings for sure. I gave this 4 stars and recommend it if you don’t mind some gruesome topics and reading of the harsh conditions of the time.