Scythe by Neal Shusterman – Review

Published: November 22, 2016

Publisher Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Series: Arc of a Scythe #1

Genre: Young Adult, Dystopian

Pages: 435 (Hardcover)

My Rating: 5/0/5.0

Synopsis:

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.

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I’ve seen this book (actually the whole series) hyped for so long that I decided to pick up the copy I’ve had on my shelf for more than a year. The hype was well deserved – mostly because the hype was from readers and not so much the publisher like many YA books. This was the most brilliant and thought provoking book (young adult or otherwise) that I’ve read in awhile. 

As you may have gathered from the synopsis and title of the book, this book is set in a world where humanity has beaten death. Now people jump off of buildings for the adrenaline rush and are revived in a couple days and when they get old, they “turn the corner” and revert back to a younger age. What happens in a world where death isn’t natural anymore? The Scythes are the answer to this – they are carefully chosen from those who are supposed to be the best among humanity, who do not want to be scythes, and they are tasked to kill. A Scythe gleans people from their district of the world and this is the only permanent death (aside from a couple notable exceptions). They are above the law of the Thunderhead (an AI that runs the world) and answer only to the Scythes.

Citra Terranova and Rowan Damisch both encounter Honourable Scythe Faraday on separate occasions and both are chosen to become his apprentice. He makes it clear that this is a competition and only one of them will be chosen to become a Scythe after a year of training. His training is intense and it’s as much moral/through training as it is physical training and surprisingly, the two remain cordial. Certain events transpire and Rowan and Citra are separated and trained by two different Scythes that have made their mark on the world. They are famous, even outside of the Scythedom and represent two very different schools of thought. This is where the story really gets gripping – how will these two mentors pit their students against one another? 

This was a brilliantly written story and one that will stick with me. It prompts the reader to think on morals and ethics while still being an entertaining read that could easily make a successful movie or tv series. It also prompted me to immediately purchase the next two books so I could satisfy my curiosity. If you’re looking for a finished series to binge read and you’re looking for a YA book that manages to subvert or avoid the most notable of tropes, maybe give this a read. There’s a good reason for such a high rating on Goodreads!