Scythe

[WARNING THERE WILL BE SPOILERS]

This was my first ever Neal Shusterman read, and now I see why he’s won so many awards.

I always come into an author’s career late, but it’s better than never. I chose this book because I was instantly hooked with the concept. What if we lived in a world where natural death was no longer a fear and we did in fact become immortal scientifically?

Scythe basically explores the idea of humans conquering nature’s natural selection. The future no longer has to worry about overpopulation and mass disease outbreaks. There is now what’s called Nanites in people’s nervous and immune system to control emotions, pain, and sickness. There is also no more government for an A.I. operates the world with fairness and logistics known as Thunderhead.

But if the world has become to so perfect, what’s left to fear? Scythes of course. Scythes have become the reapers of the earth. What’s interesting though is that they don’t refer to themselves as reapers. They prefer Scythe because it represents the sleekness and intimidation of the weapon. They also don’t call the act of ending a person’s life as killing or murder. It’s called gleaning.

I highly enjoyed this story because it was very thought provoking and at times had you empathizing with Scythe Goddard, a liberal scythe that enjoys the thrill of gleaning people in mass quantities. For a teen novel, this story was rather complex and well thought out.

Rowan and Citra, the two main characters, are given the opportunity to become Scythe Faraday’s apprentices and become scythes themselves. Rowan and Citra accept for the sake of granting immunity to their families, the act of excepting their families from being gleaned for life.

There comes a part in the story where Scythe Faraday is deemed dead by self-gleaning. From this Rowan and Citra are separated and taught under two different Scythes. Rowan being taught under Scythe Goddard and Citra being taught under legendary Scythe Currie. No one knows why Scythe Faraday gleaned himself, but one fact is true. Rowan and Citra will be trained to hate one another so that only one will become a victorious Scythe while the other will lose their life.

For the sake of story and interest, I was hoping Rowan would develop a dark side and someday become Citra’s enemy. Reason I say this is because it will encourage Citra to either bring Rowan back to the light or defeat him for her own safety and victory. This might happen in the sequel, but from the ending of this book it’s not likely.

I definitely recommend this book for those who want to read more dystopian novels other than The Hunger Games and Divergent. We all need a breather from the mainstream media, and Scythe is a good start.

#NealShusterman #Scythe #dystopia #thoughtprovoking