Book Review | Scythe

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Title: Scythe (Arc of a Scythe, #1)

Author: Neal Shusterman

Format: Paperback (owned)

Pages: 435

Categories: Dystopia, Sci-Fi, Young Adult

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.

Scythe is the first novel of a thrilling new series by National Book Award–winning author Neal Shusterman in which Citra and Rowan learn that a perfect world comes only with a heavy price.

I finally read Scythe and I’m glad I waited this long to read it while the hype has died down. But now I know why there was hype around it. It is a thought-provoking story and it made me question a lot of things.

Here we have a utopian society, where it’s “perfection” is basically taken care of by the Thunderhead. It’s what we know as the “cloud” right now but in Scythe it eventually becomes a sentient being. Isn’t that why people are afraid of AI? Well it comes true in this world of Scythe.

But there is one domain the Thunderhead cannot intervene and it’s in the process of gleaning or killing for the sake of population control. Scythes are experts in the art of killing because it is their job to keep the human population under control, because in this future time, immortality has been achieved through science. When Citra and Rowan become apprentices to become a scythe they know only one of them will get the job. They train under different scythes and learn about killing but they also find out there are some serious issues going on in the Scythedom.

• This story made me think and question many issues like immortality and if we ever achieve it. It is all achieved in Scythe and yes I had to suspend my belief a lot because I barely know anything about nanites (though I’ve heard of it before). It’s crazy, and wondrous to think immortality can be achieved through science and yet as you read the book…it gets a bit frightening too. Because humans experience boredom and even in the story we have a teen jumping off rooftops, getting a good “splat” and being revived. Over and over again…and I was like…say what? 😳
• This book is about killing, because it is the Scythe’s job to glean. It’s a sacred job to some and others take it very to the next level of crazy but I thought it was interesting to see how different the scythes were in their methods of gleaning, their approach to gleaning and what they believe is their purpose when gleaning. They make the choice of WHO gets gleaned, and in our day and age, we’d say they are playing God. Scythe Goddard definitely thought he was a god. 😒
• I enjoyed the twists and turns in the story. It moved the story along. The beginning of story was a bit slow because of the world building and Citra and Rowan going through training but I didn’t mind that. I found myself enjoying the slow reading.
• I like how we get two apprentices that give us a glimpse into how different scythes go about their business. But I was bummed for Rowan going through what he did. 😞

• Triggers: KILLING. And I mean, suicide (of course they get revived), all manners of killing with knives, guns, poison, flamethrowers, mass killings. Abuse. I didn’t think I could read this book because of the subject matter.
• Citra and Rowan’s romance – if you are looking for a love story in this book – this book isn’t it. Their relationship grows but it’s kind of unnecessary to make them fall for each other, yet they do declare their love for each other. There are no romantic parts whatsoever.
• Did I connect with the characters? Not on a deep level, I felt the most for Rowan because he got a bad deal with Scythe Goddard. And he changed a whole lot in the book. He is probably my favorite character.

• 

Even with all it’s imperfections, this story stays with you, at least it did with me. I love how it made me question our lives as humans and also wonder about the future of AI and a world of immortality (not through vampiric means, which to me is WAY more romantic 😂). Would I want to reset my age to 21 again, three times over? What would I do with all that time? And the scythes…oh man, I would not want to become one and I wouldn’t want to be in a room with one. As for Citra and Rowan’s journey, I need to see what happens to Rowan and I need to learn more about the Thunderhead. How did it come to be? I have so many questions and with that said, I’ll be reading Thunderhead right away! I think I did good finding these two books on discount from Bookoutlet! 💃🏻