Scythe, by Neal Shusterman (Book Review)

 

“Thou shalt kill.”

Humanity has conquered it all. No more sickness, no more war, no death. The only way to keep humanity’s population under control is through the scythes—the only humans capable of taking life. When Scythe Faraday takes two teenagers, Citra and Rowan, under his wing to apprentice as scythes, they must master the art of gleaning people’s lives, knowing that the consequence of failure could mean being gleaned themselves…

“If you’ve ever studied mortal age cartoons, you’ll remember this one. A coyote was always plotting the demise of a smirking long-necked bird. The coyote never succeeded; instead, his plans always backfired. He would blow up, or get shot, or splat from a ridiculous height.

And it was funny.
Because no matter how deadly his failure, he was always back in the next scene, as if there were a revival center just beyond the edge of the animation cell.
I’ve seen human foibles that have resulted in temporary maiming or momentary loss of life. People stumble into manholes, are hit by falling objects, trip into the paths of speeding vehicles.
And when it happens, people laugh, because no matter how gruesome the event, that person, just like the coyote, will be back in a day or two, as good as new, and no worse—or wiser—for the wear.
Immortality has turned us all into cartoons.”

Dang. I feel like I genuinely can’t come up this an opening line for this post that will give it credit. First of all, that cover! Honestly, they only get better, so you’re in for a treat. 

This book was one of those that challenged my thinking of other books I had read in the past. The whole world he created is one of my all time favorites. The world building wasn't confusing, and it almost felt like you were thrown it—which might seem like you should be confused—but it was like you already knew everything about it before you even started learning about it. The world is “immortal”—meaning no one can die. Pain, death, sickness—it’s been eliminated. Obviously, we know from every other dystopian book, that perfect societies can only last so long—but Shusterman made it original. I feel like most dystopian books I have read have all followed a very similar pattern; and yeah, I get it, they are all dystopian so like, sure, they are gonna be similar, the world of MidMerica was just super intriguing. 

“I think all young women are cursed with a streak of unrelenting foolishness, and all young men are cursed with a streak of absolute stupidity.”

The characters Shusterman created were good in my opinion. His male leads were some of my favorite characters of all time, and his female characters weren’t bad. I know some books are just annoying to me when I can’t click with the characters and their motives, but Shusterman did a good job of making them likable. Tyger and Rowan were stellar, and Citra was decent. My reasons behind this not being amazing I think has to do with the writing style for me. I just I didn’t love it. It was different for sure, but at first I couldn’t really place why it was that I didn’t love it. Being that it is written in third person obviously made it more of a less personal experience, but he also didn’t really expand upon the characters lives themselves, I guess. It was more just like he assumed you know their history so he only touched on it. Im not saying it took away from the characters themselves, just it might have been easier to click with them more if they were more personal to the reader. 

“He always had a way with girls. He even convinced a girl to splat with him once, just so he could say, “Girls fall for me—literally.””

The romance was…nonexistent? No, it was there, it was just very mild. The main plot is based on the two male and female leads, but then the all of the sudden them liking each other, again, just seemed kind of like, where did that come from? I did like the dynamic, just leading into their attraction was kind of abrupt and not expounded upon much. It was more just one liners that were sweet or funny, so it wasn’t terrible, just more mild and subplot-y, if that makes sense. 

“Well, she could learn self control tomorrow. Today she wanted pizza.”

Being that this is book one in a series, a lot definitely happens in the rest of the books. Things that I mentioned being more shallow now get expounded upon more in the second and third book, and I feel like they only made this one better. All in all it’s just a solid book up there with The Hunger Games when it comes to the storytelling and the future. The only things to really note going into it is the violence really, high is pretty descriptive and gruesome in ways, but it’s not too much in the dystopian world sense in my opinion. It was definitely a book I feel like came with maturity in my dystopian reading world, going from reading The Giver Quartet, to The Hunger Games, you get the idea. While it wasn’t necessarily one I would reread, it’s one that is definitely up there for me. It’s just such a unique piece, and although there were things I personally didn’t love, it was just overall good. Id recommend it for 14+ and rate it an 9 out of 10!

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Tally ho,

Finlee