Book Review: Scythe by Neil Shusterman
Author: Neil Schusterman
Publisher: Walker Books
Release Date: 1st Feb 2018
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.
Review: I'd wanted to read this book form the moment I saw the cover, just look how beautiful it is...then I read the blurb and I wanted to read it even more. It was one one of those 'this is my kinda book' situations, and whenever you do that you instantly put pressure on it to not let you down.
It didn't.
What's interesting is when I first started reading Scythe, the voice and the tone felt completely different from how I them saw it at the end. It was almost a soft melodic almost monotone voice that was taking me through the story, very cut and dry, and I've read other peoples thoughts on this, and personally I disagree, because by the end of this book I'd become consumed by the book and was EAGER for book two, so it clearly did something right ;-)
I feel like a hot topic in books that I've been reading at the moment centers around the ideas of longer and ever lasting life. Can you imagine the monotony of it all! Its even alluded into in the books! The one benefit I can currently see if potentially getting to read ALL my books. People don't have to do anything, but they do to fulfill some semblance of an average life and you can feel the resonance of this everywhere. But within this there is the very real jarring fear of death and those that bring it.
The Scythe's bring up that moral question of who should determine who dies and why. Their methods all are varied and no two Scythes operate exactly the same or even under the same code of conduct which in itself is interesting to look at. There was also the natural clash within this of 'Good Scythes' vs 'Bad Scythe'' but what I came to realise is that this for better want of a word "cliche" is always going to be the case, so you can't be mad at it. This ideal of a Utopia is just that...an ideal that can't ever be fortified because none of us exist on the same page. None of us want the exact same things and will go about getting or doing those things in the exact same ways. And so you have this conflict and our characters who are initially brought up in what we all see as a more reverent and respectful Scythe way are thrown into this new life of clashing ideals, and when you are thrown into the hunger games you have one choice: sink or swim. It just comes down to at what cost are you willing to do this. It was interesting to get the thoughts of the different Scythe's through their diary entries, adding this extra layer that helped us to keep building up the world and I'm excited to get to explore the world and its ideals further in the books.
I liked both Citra and Rowen, they both had very distinct personalities, that we only scratched the surface of. Both with inquisitive minds who approached the world in very different ways and the more I think about it they didn't have what people are referring to as a friendship, they had forced companionship, and through that grows certain connections. What I didn't particularly like though was the element of love interest, which seems to have been edited down, because it felt thrown in more than grown and developed. It was a thread that the book didn't need, but one that at same time showed that they were just kids, they were normal and vulnerable and still trying to process their feelings against what has been thrown on them and this new way of life they were expected to inhabit.
Yes this book wasn't perfect, but it was also a damn good read. I wanted to keep going when I'd finished it, it had a dramatic punch that left me feel some kinda way and I'm 100% here for Thunderhead. There's something in this series it and I can't wait to read more.
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