Book Review: Scythe by Neal Shusterman

Title: Scythe

Author: Neal Shusterman

Series: Arc of Scythe #1

Published by: Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers on 22nd of November 2016

Genre: YA, Sci-fi Dystopian

Format: Hardcover, 435 pages

Purchase: Fullybooked [PH] | Amazon | B&N

My Rating: 4 Roses

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.

Diving into this book, I actually know nothing more than that it is about a future where there is nothing more to learn and discover. Everything was already at the peak of its progress that even immortality have been conquered and with that, Scythes were made to control a population where nobody gets to die, so the idea is to basically kill people to maintain the growth that has no equivalent deaths. This is like a Black Mirror episode y'all! And if you love that series, I bet you'll love how crazy a perfect world gets.

So this "killing", in this futuristic world, is called gleaning, and only a Scythe is allowed to glean another human being, and the people chosen to be gleaned are entirely from a scythe's decision. According to one scythe, Scythe Faraday, who took two apprentices (Citra and Rowan, the main characters), the way he chooses these people is entirely out of statistics. It is based on the most probable death that would occur during the mortal age. So from a pool of possible candidates, it was in a scythe's own volition on who he/she would choose to glean.

It's kind of illogical that a scythe would just glean just because he/she picked you but somehow I don't know if I find comfort in it that it's kind of the same thing when you die suddenly in the mortal age (although dying,  sometimes,  can be avoided at times. That's why we have doctors!) , but in here,  there's no god to give the verdict. In the future the god's verdict is a scythe's verdict and it's disturbing that a life is on the hands of another human being with a title. It's really scary to come to a time like that and we're lucky that we still live in a world where taking someone's life by another one's hands were still frowned upon and openly called murder and is not a legal thing in the society.

This is a very scary concept. I cannot imagine a more suitable way of executing this idea other than what Neal Schusterman did. You read a lot of utopian future but it was something else entirely to put the idea of stagnation in the midst of human race's highest peak. One would think that when humans unveiled everything, it would be perfect. It was far from perfect. It is a monstrous world. What with conquering immortality, having no faith and having nothing to hold onto, the lingering destruction is just around the corner; a ticking bomb waiting for the perfect time to explode and leave nothing to humanity in its wake. Ultimately, the destruction is always at the hands of the weapon's wielder, and in this book, natural weaknesses are far from it. We are the wielders of our own destruction and it is a thought that each one of us knows,  but no one dares to do anything about it. We just keep on pushing discoveries for the betterment of humankind, and there's nothing wrong if we continue the learning and knowing and discovering,  but I hope that the real universe (that's us)  will have a good outcome when our time for this kind of life come knocking on our doorstep. 

The world building is not necesarily that beautiful because we do not really need to see this new world entirely because as you progressed in the book, being in this futuristic world, you will bear witness to the big changes that the human progress have made. It was incredible how, as we go along the story, we saw what a thunderhead is or the advancement with the aging process or the changes in transportation. I think it was awesome that Neal Schusterman have thought of all of these. The story itself was scary in its own way. I can't imagine myself witnessing our world to transform into this futuristic world. No. Way.

Character-wise, it felt a little too forced for me because the character development was not profound enough for me to actually be in these characters shoes and understand them for their motives, their changes, I mean, I don't know a lot about their past or what they were before they plunged into that kind of life as an apprentice of a Scythe. All we know was that Rowan was a lettuce, which translates to a life that is just a filler, just there doing nothing compared to the beef patties who took all the world's spotlight onto them. Then we have Citra, who is not the favorite in the family. The characters have developed, yes, we ultimately saw that towards the end, but during the trainings, it was so hard to see how and why they evolved, they just did. I don't really know how to explain how I felt about that but the characters' feelings are just concealed until they were revealed, I guess that's how I felt. Speaking of these two, I felt even more disconnected with their feelings for each other. It's also a case of concealed until revealed. How could they love each other?? Anyway, I did not bought that subtle romance at all.

For the villain, Goddard,  I would love to hate him but it's really hard to do so. He stands firmly to what he believes in and for him, the end justifies the mean.  What really irritates me is how Rowan had responded to everything Goddard wants out of him. He was a former apprentice of a man with character and morality but he was so easily messed up by Goddard.  I hate that part. So moving on,  Goddard has no inkling of soul left in him and you'll find that some of what he believes in make sense but really,  he's just an entitled murderer.

Lastly, I just want to say that my favorite characters were Faraday and Curie. Not the main characters. Hahaaha just wanted to put it out there!  😂

Putting these characters and disconnections aside, I really loved how the story played out and the end was just perfect! HAHAHA. Those moments leading to the final pages were just omg, I cannot say anything more because I might spoil you guys, but I was shocked really. It made me excited to read the second book. So basically,  the latter parts of the book are the main turning point of the series. It starts the questions: 'how will the scythedom end?' or 'how will Citra be the key to humanity's redemption?'

I can't say I love the book but I really do love the concept and, as others have already said, it is thought provoking and it really is.  It makes you think about where the progress lies at this moment.  Are we at 50%? *shudders* I hope there'd be a different outcome when we get to the 100%.