Ok this has to be the quickest I have read a book so far in 2024!
This book series I discovered thanks to Haley Pham recommending it on her YouTube channel last year – I think that it was during the summer months. After seeing that video I immediately added it to my wishlist, and my boyfriend had kindly gifted me the boxset for Christmas last year!
I know – very risky to buy a complete boxset when I have never read something by the author before, but a risk nonetheless that I was willing to take. And to be honest, a risk that I glad I took because it means that after writing this blog post I can dive straight into the next book in the series!
THE REVIEW
Summary of the book
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.
Summary taken from Goodreads
My thoughts: The layout of the book
The book is split into 5 parts, 5 parts that I can best describe as:
- Part 1 – Before the Scythedom
- Part 2 – The beginning of the apprenticeship
- Part 3 – The change of tutors
- Part 4 – False accusations
- Part 5 – The new Scythe
I loved that it was split into these 5 parts as it gave a real structure to the book, and no sections were spilling into others. It also added to the tension of what was happening as most of the part endings had a massive cliff hanger which made it hard to not automatically start a new part.
Also the multi media aspect of this book – LOVED IT!
At the beginning of each chapter there is a journal entry that we are able to read from. These come from different Scythes and give us an insight into their perspectives as well as a deeper understanding of the Scythedom. I loved reading these and it was something that I was looking forward to at the beginning of each chapter – trying to guess who we were going to read from next! I really hope that this is continued in the next books as it was a brilliant way to pass on the information that the reader is lacking in a way that was easy to understand. I love it when authors do it seamlessly, and not in an info dumpy manner.
Talking about seamless, Shusterman’s writing style is brilliant. You can tell that he had thoroughly thought out the plot for this book purely because of how well it flowed. There were no sections that were rushed, no sections that seemed to drag on, the pace was perfection!
My thoughts general
This book has written on the top of the cover “A true successor to The Hunger Games” and honestly this is the first book where I have truly felt that sentence has wrung true. A lot of the young adult dystopian novels that have come after The Hunger Games have often been duplicates that have a similar storyline and main characters. Scythe is different. Its only similarity is the fact that when you start the story you will not want to stop, and it poses so many ethical questions that make you question multiple things in life.
A lot of young adult books centre around romance where as in Scythe there is little to no romance. I would say to a push there is a sub sub plot of romance, but it is never truly the focal point of the novel. Realistically speaking, the friendship that blossoms into the potential romance is more concentrated on throughout. This is something I personally appreciated as I am not a self proclaimed romance girlie, it is not something that truly draws me into books. If there is romance fine but it has to be well placed and purposeful, which is what it was within the story of Scythe.
I also loved how they played upon religion to give the Scythes 10 laws to abide by, reflecting similarities to the 10 commandments. It gave it a cultish vibe in a way, but also as H.S. Curie said it offers simplicity in comparison to the lengthily laws that were seen in the age of mortality, or our present time zone.
Were there any that were jettisoned before the final ten were written in stone? And why number ten? Of all the commandments, number ten gives me the greatest pause for thought. For to put oneself above all other laws is a fundamental recipe for disaster
Neal Shusterman, Scythe
I just had to insert the quotation here to look emphasize the religion aspect seeing as the commandments were written in stone! The ten commandments in Christianity were etched into a stone slab and brought down to the Jewish followers. This just makes me think that this journal entry was a slight jab to religion seeing as it is noted that it is a fundamental recipe of disaster to provide laws like that.
Even though there are no high stakes within the book, I was on the edge of my seat at all times. To give a bit of context, the Scythe are the ones who control who will die next as no humans die naturally. If you do become deadish by accident, you will be revived as it is only the Scythe that can terminate life. That is why in some respect there is not high stakes as we know that the main two characters who are scythes in training will not die throughout their training.
It is therefore amazing how Shusterman was able to keep us on the edge of our seat throughout the entirety of the novel, probably because of the continuous plot twists that were unpredictable that just made the story that much intriguing.
The whole idea and concept of the novel is not something I have read before, and I feel like it can be really rare in this day and age to find something truly different from other books. It may just be that I have not read a book that is similar yet, but we will just have to see for future reads! What made it even better was that Haley Pham’s video did not spoil anything, and I kind of forgot what it was about from that video, so I went into the novel completely blind! I think that if I had refreshed my memory by reading the blurb I would have been waiting for the last sentence of the blurb and it may have ruined the experience, a bit like what happened with Circe and Odysseus.
There are many characters that we follow within this books, including some high level Scythes. Each Scythe has a name that they pick once ordained, and they are normally of impressive mortals from before the world was immune to death. Notably, one of the Scythes we follow is Scythe Marie Curie. I love how even in the future they still reminisce the notable leaders and people of the past.
Within the book though, we follow two main apprentice Scythe’s: Rowan and Citra. These are some of my all time favourite protagonists to read about, their characters are really complex and explored throughout the course of the novel. They both go on massive character arcs throughout the course of the book which adds to the intricacy and complexity of their characters.
One of the things that I am looking forward to is to see the families reactions to the outcome of the first book in consequent books. I really hope they feature this as I would love to find out more.
My favourite quote
Ok so this may be a weird favourite quote, but it is one that has stuck in my brain since reading it, and when I first read it I kept laughing:
“I am in my element, and my element is hydrogen burning in the heart of the sun!”
Scythe, Neal Shusterman
It is not even that funny, but it just keeps making me laugh!
Would I recommend the book?
Yes. Yes I really would. I recommend you also get the box set so that you do not have to wait to get nose deep into the next book.
It is a unique dystopian novel, the first of a trilogy, that warrants it high rating on Goodreads. The twists and turns will keep you on the edge of your seat and you will need breaks in order to remember how to breathe.
The characters are loveable and have amazing arcs, even the ones that are not the main protagonists. Just an all round great read!
The Little Sunflower Library 
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