Review: Scythe

Scythe by Neal Shusterman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well this book was pretty great!

There's a plot about two kids unwillingly chosen to be apprentice Scythes - sanctioned murderers - but I was definitely more fascinated by the setting.

This is possibly a first for me: to be so completely fascinated by the setting! Unreal! But I was blown away by the whole idea of a future where humankind has perfected everything, and because of this perfection everything is completely dull.

As a creative person, the notion of having nothing to aspire to, nothing to strive for, nothing to motivate and inspire ... that's a horror story right there. To think that everyone is just average, just going through the motions, just completely underwhelmed by life because there's nothing more to refine ... I can't think of anything more depressing! It just really emphasises the whole ying/yang side of things. No one likes it when evil things happen, and I'm all about treating one another as equals, but it is also utterly fascinating to consider a world completely devoid of conflict of any kind. I think world peace would be a beautiful thing, but there'd have to be something seriously big to fill the gap in society that would be come about from the relinquished time and energy that currently goes into hating other people.

It's such a giant well of possibility and consequences and it makes my mind reel. I really loved that aspect of this story. It made me think pretty deeply about society, and good vs evil, and the constant quest to be better, and to enhance our way of living. There is some deep thinking to be done as a consequence of reading this.

There was a cool story, too!

Citra and Rowan are really neat characters. They're both pretty ballsy in their own ways, and I liked that there wasn't a huge focus on budding romance. This is a pretty serious story with some big ideas, and I appreciated that it wasn't cheapened by insta-love. I hope Citra and Rowan go on to become a pretty badass duo by the end of the series.

All of the scythe rules and customs etc were quite interesting, and I liked that it allowed for a sliver of our own world issues to be present in this horrifying future. Corruption is such a sly little malice. It leaks into the world slowly but surely, and spreads quietly. I enjoyed the tainted evil that was Goddard, who naturally does not see himself as evil, making him all the more formidable. The most terrifying villains are the ones who see themselves as the good guys.

Faraday was a great mentor and I enjoyed his idealism, and Curie was quite an interesting character, whom I definitely suspected of being a bad guy in disguise for a time. I didn't like the cowardly big boss, but the pool incident gave me mixed feelings.

Man, this book just has some epic ideas.

Re: the missing fifth star: I suspect there's some plot holes related to the implications of living in a perfect world, and I would have appreciated some more humour/sass, but I guess it's not exactly a light-hearted kind of book. It also would have been more fun with more characters ... like some rival apprentices or something. More willful teens wreaking havoc, basically. But it's actually pretty well done as it is. Just not fun enough for me to give it 5 stars.

There's a great story here revolving around Citra and Rowan's apprenticeships, but my favourite part of this book was all of the moral questions it raised. This one will definitely have me thinking over it for a while. and I'll be anxious to get my hands on the sequel.

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