Scythe by Neal Shusterman ~ Book Review!!!

Scythe is a futuristic fantasy story. It takes place at a time where humanity has cured disease and death and therefore are essentially immortal, so there are Scythes who are chosen to glean a certain small percentage of the population. It is done to mimic the normal death cycles from when people were mortal. Teens Rowan and Citra are chosen to be a Scythes apprentices… and the journey unfolds!

This book is kind of a crazy ride. A lot of unexpected twists and turns, but overall it was a captivating story!

World building is good in this book. It’s the first book in the series so it has to layout the history and some basic geography for the story. It takes place in an future where the world is full of technology and different regions and cultures seemed to have combined. Unlike some stories, Scythe doesn’t give you a descriptive overload or history overload right at the beginning. It’s peppered throughout the story which I appreciated because the world begins to get clearer the more the teens learn about this mysterious Scythe world inside their own. There are Scythe journal entries between chapters randomly from different Scythes, this adds a little more depth to the world as we get to see some view points about what is going on from others outside of the main story line at the time.

World: 5

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Character development is very good in this story. This story feels character driven and therefore almost all of the characters grow or change in some way from the beginning to the end of the book. Some change for the better, some not. I did notice, while writing this review that the only characters that don’t seem to grow or change in some way through the course of the pages end up disappearing from the story all together. It’s nice to see so much character growth in one book. This book also focuses a lot of detail on what would be considered secondary characters, bringing them just as much to life as the main characters. Being written in 3rd person allows the author to dip into the minds and thoughts of other characters from time to time and it’s an interesting way to read and see what is going on around the main characters.

Characters: 5

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Relationships are an interesting subject for this book. There are definitely friendships, family, and romantic relationships throughout. As the teens go on their journey toward Scythedom they have to put on hold their contact with family and friends. If they become Scythes they’ll need to lead a more lonely life, however they develop friendship and bonds with each other and the scythes around them. Love is discussed in the story, but since it’s forbidden for Scythes there’s no real shown examples of romantic relationships in this book. Friendship and being part of a community are the driving relationships in this story. The relationships overall though all felt fragile, like anything could and does drive them apart at times.

Relationships: 4

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Emotions in this story aren’t the strongest, but there are a lot of moments that had the potential to be strong. There were a few moments during the beginning when my eyes started to tear up, but the moments were over tastefully and nothing happened that would bring me to full tears. The focus of the Scythe’s lifestyle is death, so the events around death aren’t always necessarily sad to the point that tears are brought on. They are more somber moments rather than crushing moments. I was shocked a couple times by gleanings and other occurrences regarding the Scythes. As the story continues the plot turns darker. I would gasp or feel defeated in ways that I don’t usually while reading, and I really appreciated the new feelings while reading this book. These brutal but somber emotions are what kept me reading and what will drive me to finish the rest of the books in this series.

Emotions: 5

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The pacing of this story is ok. You have about a year’s time in a little over 400 pages. Time skips are inevitable, and during those time skips the teens go through training or other events and it’s mentioned in passing. Sometimes I had to pause as I noticed the transition of present to past tense back to present tense to catch up on a time skip. I don’t like it when I’m reading and a noticeable change in writing style makes me stop and actually notice the change in style. It interrupts the flow of reading for me, I compare it to breaking the 4th wall randomly or something similar, and is a sort of annoyance while I get back into the flow of reading afterwards.

However, the events and happenings that occur are action packed and full of events that keep the story interesting and moving forward. The transition between the two main characters and the journal entries help to keep the story interesting and drives the reader to continue to see what will happen next.

Pacing: 3

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Overall, I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. I really enjoyed reading Scythe and found the characters and emotions every interesting in a story of this type of subject matter. I’m definitely going to read the next books in the series and look forward to getting back into the world.

TTYL,

Squared