Hello everyone!
I am back with another review, today it is Scythe by Neal Shusterman!
The story follows two 'main' characters, Citra and Rowan. Both have been selected to apprentice as scythe's in this utopian world where humanity has perfected everything, eliminating disease, preventing the corruption of politicians, and, achieved immortality. Scythes are these sort of revered and feared figures who are responsible for 'gleaning' people, the nice way of saying killing, in order to control the population. But as Citra and Rowan's training progresses, it becomes clear that many scythes are not as noble and compassionate as their trainer.
For some reason, right away I got some The Giver vibes from this book. I'm not sure if it's just because I haven't read a dystopian (or utopian) in such a long time my brain just connected it with probably one of the first ones I've ever read or if its because the comparison actually holds up. Scythe Faraway is depicted as a very wise and noble figure with knowledge to give, much like the Giver, but the plot of both of these books is very different.
This comparison did, however, kind of throw my perception of the characters. While society has stopped counting the years, the main characters are said to be around 17-years-old. But, when they are first introduced, Rowan and especially Citra, seem quite young - to the point where I thought Citra was a child. This made things a little weird when the eventual 'romance' between the two came along, despite the fact that they were both teenagers.
I guess since I brought it up, I will touch on the romance now. Now, don't get me wrong, I love a good romance, especially a star-crossed one, and even in a dystopian novel where they should have more important things to do. I just think in this instance, it was poorly executed and really added nothing to the story, almost verging on the point of taking away from the story. There was little to no chemistry between the characters aside from them realizing they liked each other. By the end, there had been no opportunities for the characters to explore these feelings, but they still acted as if it had been previously discussed between them.
Aside from the shoe-horned romance, I really loved this book. It was engaging from the very first page, just unique enough to pique my interest and well done enough to hold it for the duration of the book. There were definitely a lot of twists and turns, a lot that I didn't see coming and a couple I had guessed roughly. I haven't had a lot of experience reading Shusterman's books, I've only read Challenger Deep, so I wasn't really sure what I was in for, writing-wise, but I was thoroughly impressed.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book and cannot wait to pick up book two!