Scythe by Neal Shusterman (Review)

Scythe by Neal Shusterman

Format: Paperback

Source: Library

Publisher: Walker Books

Genres: Young Adult, Sci-fi, Dystopia, Fantasy

Publication Date: 1st February 2018

Synopsis/Blurb (Taken from Goodreads):

“A dark, gripping and witty thriller in which the only thing humanity has control over is death. 

In a world where disease, war and crime have been eliminated, the only way to die is to be randomly killed (“gleaned”) by professional scythes. Citra and Rowan are teenagers who have been selected to be scythes’ apprentices, and despite wanting nothing to do with the vocation, they must learn the art of killing and understand the necessity of what they do.

Only one of them will be chosen as a scythe’s apprentice and as Citra and Rowan come up against a terrifyingly corrupt Scythedom, it becomes clear that the winning apprentice’s first task will be to glean the loser.”

My Thoughts & Review

I’ve had this book waiting to be read on my TBR cart for nearly a year. I picked up all three books from my local library just before the first lockdown and just kept putting off picking them up purely because of how hyped the series has been. While now I’ve read the first book in the series I can definitely see why so many have loved it.

Scythe follows two main characters Citra and Rowan, who have been chosen to be next Scythe apprentices. But both are reluctant, as they don’t agree with what the Scythes do. Now, that’s all I’m going to say about the plot as it really is best to go into this series knowing as little as possible, this is what I did.  

Now what I will tell you is that this is a very well written book with a very unique plot and great world building. The world building is slow and well-paced. You never feel overwhelmed and you’re able to follow along easily. Although I found the writing to be pretty simple it definitely kept me captivated and kept me turning those pages. Another favourite was the journal entries at the end of the chapters, it made the book feel like the Scythe world really existed.

The characters were well-developed and very complex, yet still came across as individuals with their own experiences and feelings. Although I liked Citra and Rowan’s characters my favourite was definitely Faraday. Despite his honour and commitment to his job he still had a side to him where he wanted to protect people. 

Now, although I loved this book once thing that brought my rating down was the romance. Yes, I might not be a fan of romance in most books, but in this one it just felt really forced and think it would have been best if it wasn’t included at all. But that’s just my personal opinion.

All in all, a great read and can’t wait to pick up the next book!!!

My Rating

💙💙💙💙

Have you read this book? What did you think of it? Leave a comment below and let’s have a chat.

Happy Reading!!!

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