Jessica’s Thoughts on Scythe


Author: Neal Shusterman
Published: November 22, 2016
Audiobook

Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Read: April 30-May 11, 2018
Jessica’s Rating: 5 stars

Book Description:

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.

Jessica’s Review:

I loved Scythe 100% by Neal Shusterman! Thank you to Kim whose review influenced me to want to read it. Her review is here.  I listened to the audiobook and OMG, I wanted to keep driving and not stop!  I can’t say anything negative about Scythe!

Scythe takes place in the future in a world where natural death no longer occurs and the Internet is an all-powerful being called the Thunderhead. All knowledge is acquired and we all have ‘nanites’ in our blood that heal us. If someone does die then they can be revived….. So no one dies…  But you have to wonder: What about overpopulation?!?!?!?  That problem has also been solved and the answer is one word: Scythes.

Scythes are appointed to perform random ‘gleanings’. Gleanings are deaths where one cannot be revived. All first responder type occupations are not to interfere with any Scythe business. There are many rules to gleaning. One of them is the scythe gets to decide the method of the gleaning. And we get to experience various methods of gleaning throughout the novel: from no pain to pure brutality.

You can see where this is going….  Scythe will make you think long after you have finished it.  It will cause serious thought-provoking ethical discussions. I did figure out and suspect a few things that were revealed as twists later on, but it did not cease my enjoyment.

I liked both Citra and Rowan and we see them evolve over the course of the novel as they become apprentices.  I adored Scythe Faraday and really liked Scythe Curie. I look forward to reading the sequel Thunderhead, and then I can bet I will be highly anticipating the third in the series which Goodreads has titled as The Toll. I just need to find Thunderhead on audio!! Neal Shusterman is a genius!!

Scythe is very highly recommended!!

Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK