The Sin Eater

Rating:
Summary: Scmidt and the Sin Eater
Review: After reading these past reviews as compared to the booklist review, I cannot see how a critic can compare to the real people this book was written for--the regular reader. though it took me but a day to read this book, I found it invigorating, insightful and meaningful. I must admit, I am quite biased, Schmidt is one of my professors and mentors. Yet, regardless of this fact, this story is one that should be told. If not for the story itself, then for the moral and the message behind it--that one shouldn't let the hardships of life bring them down, that life goes on..we should charish life.

Rating:
Summary: Utterly depresing
Review: I read this book and found it, frankly, depresing. If you would like to know, it is about a 15 year old boy who's mother passed away the year before. Now his father and himself have seemed to drift apart. So much that his father seems like a stranger. At the beginning of the book he reminises of the so-called Old Days when his mother was still alive, and when they went on car trips, and how they would play road games, which I hate to say made me feel ultimitly depressed. Then on about the second chapter, he reaches his grandparents house where he sulks and reminisses some more, while cleaning his grandmother's small family graveyard. At about 2/4 through the book, he notices a small picture of a man in a basic flannel shirt and blue jeans. After asking a family friend, he realizes it's a tin-type of the legendary Sin Eater. After this dreary period, he finally makes some local friends who take him to the Sin Eater's former house where he finds a treasure. Then Christmas time comes, and his father spends all his time upstairs in the attic, looking at old pictures, while he refuses to put up a tree, because of the memories of past Christmas's when his wife was still alive. I won't tell you the rest, in case you would like to read it yourself, but it ends in a somewhat happy ending. I would not recommed this book, but I suppose some people might like it, if your the type of person who enjoys some-what depressing lituature.

Rating:
Summary: This is one of the best young-adult books I've ever read.
Review: This book is a true gem. It is beautifully written and constructed. The reviewer from Booklist seems to have misunderstood the book when she said that the Sin Eater element was not well integrated -- all of the elements of this book are perfectly integrated. It is, in fact, the Sin Eater "character"(as well as Cole's grandparents, friends and community) that allow Cole to cope with and understand his loss. This is a truly beautiful book with many layers of meaning. It is about the value of family history and experience, the past, community, faith... It's a book that will make you think. It's a book you will want to reread. Don't take it lightly and don't miss it!