Citra Terranova and Rowan Damisch are two teens destined to become scythes. ‘Scythe’, in the modern day world set in the far future, is another word for 'killer’.
At a time when overpopulation threatens to diminish all natural resources, the Thunderhead (an artificially intelligent “cloud”), decides to leave it up to humans to control the ever-growing population. It is the scythes’ jobs to follow the scythe commandments and glean, or kill, other humans. There is much debate over the gleaning process, as there are many bloodthirsty, new scythes who enjoy killing and participate in mass gleanings. This goes against the very morals of being a scythe and challenges the ethics of the dystopian society.
Citra and Rowan want nothing to do with killing or being a scythe. However, this is also why they were both chosen as apprentices– for compassion. The story weaves on to become ever more complicated. Which one of them will become a new scythe and which one will return home? Will they survive the convoluted plots and schemes of those who want power? I bulldozed my way through the book, my eyes glued to the pages.
To tell the truth, Scythe by Neal Shusterman is one of the few young adult novels I’ve ever liked. Why? There are several reasons. First, the life-like setting in this book pulled me in right from the start. The author described humanity and Earth in the far future by including plenty of details about the governmental system (which is mostly run by the Thunderhead) to the types of jobs in the future. Occasionally that information was provided to the reader from a secondary source, such as a villain, which makes it more interesting to read about. Throughout the story, I was captivated by the different societal elements in the book which were often followed up with ethics and morals. One example of this was the futuristic health industry, which advanced so much that if one died, he or she could be delivered to the nearest hospital center and revived–good as new–within days. The only way to truly die was by an unnatural cause: death by a scythe. This resulted in splatters, people who tried to die purposefully for fun only to be revived hundreds of times. Unfortunately, the ideals of this utopia fell short. Immortality? Well, perhaps it wasn’t such of a good thing after all. People in the future were so accustomed to being revived that many took life for granted. It didn’t help that all of the jobs were useless and unecessary, since the Thunderhead had almost infinite knowledge and could do every type of job. To make things even worse, scythes who killed for fun were gaining control in the scythedom and there seemed to be no plausible solution to this. From the very beginning of the book (and even the back cover!), you have a sense that something’s not right. You see, many of the ethics behind the society’s rules also have to do with death. Although life in the far future seems to be close to perfect, you soon realize that the Thunderhead has made a mistake in not controlling death’s certain aspects.
Apart from the setting, I enjoyed reading the riveting plot line. Unlike many other dystopian fiction novels I have read, Scythe has a story that’s hard to predict. I wish the ending of Scythe and the sequel, Thunderhead, gave me more insight of what’s to come in the third book but I suppose the mystery keeps you reading!
Admittingly, I have always cringed at high school romance, which has an almost guaranteed presence in YA novels. It’s true that Scythe does have some romance but it’s subtle and not overdone. Sometimes, in young adult books, the romance is glorified so that it takes over the whole story and makes it hard to follow the plotline (no matter how interesting). However, you may be glad to hear that Scythe is an exception.
All in all, if you’re interested in science fiction, dystopias, riveting plots and characters, and fascinating settings, I guarantee you that you won’t be able to put this book down.
