A review by enchantingreads_rosyreviews
Sinner by Sierra Simone

emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This is how you do the intimacy teaching trope! The honest & open communication between the characters is something we all need more of. Yes, it will make you blush but it’s also part of why I love these characters so stinking much!

“You are beautiful, Zenny... Your face is stunning, your body is a work of art. But it’s you I can’t stop thinking about, how you ask for things and how you argue, how you tease and how you rant and how you glow when you talk about what matters to you. When I say the word beautiful, sweetheart, know I mean it.”

Again, Sierra gives us frank observations about religion, since Sean is angry with the church & its deity for the pain he has in his life & with his loved ones. He doesn’t let people in but when a beautiful woman comes into his life asking to use his body for a month before she devotes her life as a nun, he takes this responsibility seriously.

I’ll never be able to compete with her god. With her mission and vocation. I’m losing my mind over her, but for Zenny, I’m merely a stop on the road to sainthood.

This dynamic is usually just a lot of spicy times & while that definitely exists here, there’s a lot of other forms of intimacy & trust between them. And as they grow closer, Sean builds more compassion, deals with love & loss, while Zenny makes him softer & kinder. This book is emotional, funny, introspective & just fantastic. I love him & I love them together!

... I see that she’s not just pretty. She’s stunning; she’s incredible. She’s the kind of beautiful that inspires songs and paintings and wars... Jesus Christ. Pretty. What a stupid word to have used for her, what a bland shadow of the truth. Cakes and throw pillows are pretty—this woman is something else entirely. Something that makes me blink and glance away for a moment, because looking at her does this weird thing to my throat and my chest. Looking at her gives me this feeling like my hand is on a veil shrouding some powerful mystery, the way I used to feel looking at the stained-glass windows of my church. The way I used to feel about God.

Alright, I know I said I liked Tyler & Poppy's story, but that was before Sean & Zenny's story. I LOVE THEM!!! Like, Sean is everything I loved about Tyler & more, but Zenny is just everything. I love that she's young but knows exactly what she wants & what she deserves. I love that she's exploratory, but shy, yet demanding, but nervous. And I love how much Sean loves her.

“I want to build a tower around you, and then build a castle around that tower, and then dig a moat around that castle, and then I want to guard you like a dragon. Burn anyone who tries to hurt you into ash and then scorch those ashes a second time.”

“I don’t want you to have any problems, not a single one, not even me. When I told you I wanted to be your dragon outside of the castle, I didn’t mean it like… like I’m the only one who gets to keep you hostage. I meant it like I wish I could burn everything bad away in your life so you can do whatever you want.”

And all of this is made exponentially better with the narration. I've officially reached the point where, if Jacob Morgan narrates it, I'm in. That's all it takes. His performances in this series are single-handedly changing my mind on single/dual narration. I love how he interprets what's written & I love what is written for him to perform. Sierra Simone's writing is funny, pensive, emotional & her commentary on society & our relationship with religion are fantastic. None of this is lost with Jacob's performance, her words are merely enhanced & I've been having so much fun reading these books.

Also, I have to give a round of applause to Sierra for this moment:
The prioress smiles. “Biblical metaphors for God include a laboring woman, a breastfeeding mother, even a mother hen. And man and woman were both created in God’s image, were they not? Why use Him and not Her? In fact, why even say God instead of Goddess? Both Him and Her are not enough to contain the fullness of God, who is outside the construct of gender, who is so much more than the human mind can conceive... Sean, faith and belief are the practices of committing a life in the face of no answers. God is and always will be outside of human comprehension. And loving Her is an act; it’s not stubbornly repeating creeds and trying to force Her into modern expectations or rational paradigms. She’ll never fit in the same boxes we apply to science and reason; She’s not meant to. And to try to force it only breeds spiritual violence in the end.”
Expand filter menu Content Warnings