We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion.

This reading group guide for Sin Eater includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author Megan Campisi. “A novel as strange as it is captivating” ( BuzzFeed), The Sin Eater “is a treat for fans of feminist speculative fiction” ( Publishers Weekly) and “exactly what historical fiction lovers have unknowingly craved” ( New York Journal of Books). “Very much reminiscent of The Handmaid’s Tale…it transcends its historical roots to give us a modern heroine” ( Kirkus Reviews). To avenge her death, May must find out who placed the deer heart on the coffin and why. She is taken to prison, tortured, and killed. 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.

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.

The Sin Eater walks among us, unseen, unheardįollowing Her to the grave, unseen, unheardįor 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. “For fans of The Handmaid’s Tale.a debut novel with a dark setting and an unforgettable heroine.is a riveting depiction of hard-won female empowerment” ( The Washington Post).

Sin Eater by Megan Campisi