For the crime of stealing bread, fourteen-year-old May receives a life sentence: she must become a Sin Eater—a shunned woman, brutally marked, whose fate is to hear the final confessions of the dying, eat ritual foods symbolizing their sins as a funeral rite, and thereby shoulder their transgressions to grant their souls access to heaven.
Orphaned and friendless, apprenticed to an older Sin Eater who cannot speak to her, May must make her way in a dangerous and cruel world she barely understands. When a deer heart appears on the coffin of a royal governess who did not confess to the dreadful sin it represents, the older Sin Eater refuses to eat it. She is taken to prison, tortured, and killed. To avenge her death, May must find out who placed the deer heart on the coffin and why.
The Sin Eater walks among us, unseen, unheard
Sins of our flesh become sins of Hers
Following Her to the grave, unseen, unheard
The Sin Eater Walks Among Us.
The Review (Contains Spoilers)
I quite enjoyed this story about a girl whose punishment for stealing bread is to eat a ritual meal absolving the dying of all their mortal sins and taking them into herself. I enjoyed the murder mystery, the societal struggles, the brutality. I've seen this story being compared to The Handmaid's Tale but I don't necessarily agree. It's true that the women are the most suffering people (arguably) and they are dominated by a religious patriarchy despite having a female monarch. The way people are treated, especially those of lower caste, is messed up to the extreme. Women and the ill are often made to shoulder and swallow the sins of the men in their lives, silently and without the hint of complaint even in The Real World. I see May as a different kind of protagonist from June in many ways but the main one is her ability to own her lot. She doesn't necessarily disagree with the religion that has brought her so low as to make her undeserving of even a pleasant afterlife DESPITE that the cause of her suffering was so that her biological father would not suffer the stigma of having given birth to an illegitimate child and not for any true religious circumstances. She wasn't called to fulfill this role in her society, didn't choose it, wasn't asked. And while she does resist it, eventually she uses it as a tool to get more than what she needs, but more importantly what she wants. When given the chance to be "free," she doesn't want it. I think in a way, May realized that she couldn't escape her ostracization because there was no world in which she could really, bone deeply ever again be free. Even the queen was controlled and manipulated by the people she was closest to, so how could May? There was no world in which someone, somewhere didn't suffer for the deeds of others, and I think she actually was good at what she did. She gifted the dying not only with peace but with the promise that their deaths would be remembered, perhaps even avenged. There's a power in being unseen and unheard, and a strength in being viewed as tainted and untouchable. The biggest challenge is the loneliness, as it so often is.
I will admit to never having heard of sin eaters before and it makes me sad to think of the anonymous people who have come and gone. I suppose given enough time though, we all become unknown eventually. I view June as someone who resents what has been done to her; she knows what life was like when she had opinions to voice, a life to live that was her own. May never really had that because she had to survive. Neither May nor June is stronger than the other, I just think they are different and coming from different places. Admittedly, there are a few similarities that make them intertwine a bit, but I don't at all think they are sisters.
The way this book unfolds is arresting. It had my full attention for a single evening and I loved the mystery and how May slowly untangled it. She's quite clever and resourceful in a way only those who know real suffering can be.
My final review is 4 out of 5 stars.
