Hey, guys! I am so freaking excited to talk about a Book I loved so much, and that is Scythe by Neil Shusterman. This is the first book in his Arc of a Scythe series, and I read it purely based on the fact that it was on a lot of people’s favorites list for 2017 on Booktube. They did not overhype it because it was fantabulous. It went in so many unexpected directions, and I just really love this book. But before I go on and on and on, let’s just jump right into the review!

Synopsis:

“In a world where disease has been eliminated, the only way to die is to be randomly killed (“gleaned”) by professional reapers (“scythes”). Citra and Rowan are teenagers who have been selected to be scythe’s apprentices, and—despite wanting nothing to do with the vocation—they must learn the art of killing and come to understand the necessity of what they do.

Only one of them will be chosen as a scythe’s apprentice. And when it becomes clear that the winning apprentice’s first task will be to glean the loser, Citra and Rowan are pitted against one another in a fight for their lives. ”

My Thoughts:

My god. This book. I absolutely freaking loved it! It was action packed and introspective, and it was just a really great dystopian novel. It’s been years since I’ve read anything in the dystopian genre, and this reignites my love for it. I was super into this genre in high school, and I think I have an even greater appreciation for it now!

Specific to this book, I thought it was a great analysis of the corruption we can see in the future, but not necessarily in the government. If you give one group too much power, things tend to go haywire, and I think this book displayed that really well. There isn’t really a government in this book. Everyone is ruled by an AI (Artificial Intelligence) called the Thunderhead. The Thunderhead provides everything for everyone, and it even speaks to people. But it wants nothing to do with the scythes. It has no jurisdiction over the Scythedom at all. Because it can do nothing to prevent them from killing everyone and everything, the entire world is vulnerable because of it.

I also really loved the characters. I think most of them were growers to me. I wasn’t sure how I felt about them in the beginning. I ended up really appreciating these characters, though. They go through a lot of growth over the course of the book. Citra really grows into her own. She’s no longer just this regular, teenage girl. She finds her inner strength and fights for what she believes in. And I think that is really beautiful to read about.

Rowan went in a very different direction than I was expecting. He started out as this very bland character, honestly. But as the book progresses, he honestly started to scare me a little bit. This darkness inside him started growing more and more, and I was concerned with what was happening to him. I think it’s going to be very interesting to see how his character continues to change and grow as the rest of the series continues.

Overall, I really loved the simplistic writing style, the characters, the world, and just the story in general. I think it was a solid start to a new series, and I can’t wait to read more from Neal Shusterman!

And there you have it! That was my review of Scythe by Neil Shusterman. What is one of your favorite dystopian series? Comment down below! I would love to know. And that is going to be it for this review today. Thank you all so much for reading this, I hope you enjoyed it, and I will see you next time!