Scythe by Neal Shusterman

Summary:

Thou shalt kill.

A world with no hunger, no disease, no war, no misery. Humanity has conquered all those things, and has even conquered death. Now scythes are the only ones who can end life—and they are commanded to do so, in order to keep the size of the population under control.

Citra and Rowan are chosen to apprentice to a scythe—a role that neither wants. These teens must master the “art” of taking life, knowing that the consequence of failure could mean losing their own.

The Review:

This was another book, in which I was intrigued by the premise. A world without death is a fantastic premise, and how there still needs to be death in order for the population control.

First off, I love the characters. The book is told through two POVs which are Citra and Rowan. I love how both characters progressed throughout the book. Both were sort of unsure about whether or not to become a scythe, but they start to learn a little bit more about the scythe history and why they need to do what they do. Their mentor Faraday is a great mentor figure who deeply cares about them.

Another great character is Scythe Curie, who was deemed the Goddess of Death. You see a lot of her views on death and being a scythe, she also lived through the “Age of Morality”. Scythe Goddard was a fantastic villain. He was a scythe who got a pleasure out of “gleaning” and would do so without hesitation or worry. I felt that both characters should light side and dark side of being  a scythe.

The world-building was extremely well done. It had a good amount of info dump, but the book wasn’t too bogged down by it. It gave us a world without hunger, disease or war. The world before was called “The Age of Morality”. It seems like a world worse than the one the book is set in. But I do love how Citra and Rowan question the world by asking ‘What murder is?” or “What is a cold?” It kinda shows how far the world has came.

It also does a good job at showing the politics of the world of the scythe, and how one becomes a scythe. The book is mostly dealing with Citra and Rowan’s training to become a scythe and going through several trials in order to do so. The trials are there to set up their morals and how they would become a scythe. I also liked seeing the different types of “gleanings” they would have to do.

There is also a religious group called the Tonists who don’t believe in scythe, they were briefly mentioned and seen, but I would love to see more about them. I also felt the ending  was a bit rushed and I would have liked to see the ending more developed. But it does make me excited to see where the story goes.

In the end, I enjoyed Scythe and I thought it was definitely worth the hype. I loved the ideas that the book brought up, especially about death. The characters were well developed and added a lot to the story. I want to see where this story goes.

Grade: 4.7/5