7 Reasons Why I Couldn't Bring Myself to Like: The Sin Eater's Daughter by Melinda Salisbury

Title: The Sin Eater's Daughter
Author: Melinda Salisbury
Audiobook
Published: February 24th, 2015
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Genre: YA - Fantasy - High Fantasy - Magic - Romance
Source: SYNC Summer Free Audiobooks

A startling, seductive, deliciously dark debut that will shatter your definition of YA fantasy.

Sixteen-year-old Twylla lives in the castle. But although she's engaged to the prince, no one speaks to her. No one even looks at her. Because Twylla isn't a member of the court.

She's the executioner. As the goddess-embodied, Twylla kills with a single touch. So each week, she's taken to the prison and forced to lay her hands on those accused of treason.

No one will ever love her. Who could care for a girl with murder in her veins? Even the prince, whose royal blood supposedly makes him immune to her touch, avoids her.
But then a new guard arrives, a boy whose playful smile belies his deadly swordsmanship. And unlike the others, he's able to look past Twylla's executioner robes and see the girl, not the goddess. Yet a treasonous romance is the least of Twylla's problems. The queen has a plan to destroy her enemies-a plan that requires an unthinkable sacrifice.

Will Twylla do what it takes to protect her kingdom? Or will she abandon her duty in favor of a doomed love?

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The Sin Eater's Daughter is a huge disappointment of a book. I think the only thing that salvaged this to 2 stars for me is the twist at the end, which I completely did not expect. Aside from that, I don't even know what to praise anymore. I mean, I guess the story is quite original, but nah, unfortunately, it's not my cup of tea.

Here's why I couldn't bring myself to like this book:
1. The world. The world was basically constricted to Tywlla's room and temple and a few parts of the castle. Yes, there were talk of other Kingdoms, but none of them were explored.

2. The plot. Because the world is constricted to Twylla's room and temple, there was not much of a plot except for the evil queen and the romance. Granted, there were a lot of revelations, but still, the world and plot seemed to be narrow-scoped to me, compared to most fantasy novels.

3. The love triangle. Oh, it was so predictable that she would fall for Lief! I mean, what ever happened to girls wanting to marry Princes as the cliché? In novels nowadays, cliché means loving the other guys, and thus it's what's predictable nowadays.

4. What is up with that ending? The novel has an open-ending that I don't get, and there were many loose ends still not tied. What ever happened to the Kingdom, the prince and Lief? There are still so many questions left unanswered, and overall I'm just not satisfied with that ending.

5. It was a boring read. I didn't feel compelled to read it, and the only reason that I didn't put it down is because I have a hard time not finishing books and feel the need to finish them once I reach pass 50%. I keep waiting for amazing things to happen, but until the twist and after the twist, everything was just boring for me.

6. I can't connect to the characters. Twylla is stupid and both Lief and Merek felt manipulative to me. The queen is evil, we all know that, and her mother is a bitch. Everyone in this novel infuriated me at some point, and I just couldn't find a single character that I liked.

7. Self-pitying Twylla. In the end, Twylla was talking about everything was her fault, bla bla bla, and said that she should stop pitying herself. But what does she do a few pages later? Go back to pitying herself, of course. Ugh, Trylla, you infuriate me!

Overall, I didn't like the world nor the plot, didn't get a proper ending, and dealt with characters that infuriated me. If it were not for the unexpected twist, this would have been a 1-star book. I think it's safe to say that I wasted my time trying to finish this novel, when clearly I didn't connect to it from the start. 

2 stars. Ah, it's okay.