Scythe by Neal Shusterman is book one of the Arc of a Scythe trilogy, one of four (almost five) books in the Scythedom, but because I won’t be reading the second or third for some time, I am going to review this one now.

You can’t have missed seeing this book around, especially if you spend any amount of time in the YA section of bookstores. The cover is simple but memorable, with a neat (though decades overdone) optical trick when you look closer. A slash of white. A red-robed Death with a black scythe. Or so we would see it on first encounter. I expected to like the book. I really did. It reminded me of The Hunger Games though it had its own neat twist on a dys/utopia. And so far, the writing is not quite as good as The Hunger Games. But I will for sure recommend it and finish the trilogy. According to friends, I should go even further than the trilogy.

The tagline for this novel: “Thou shalt kill.” In the future, humans have conquered mortality, which means that their lives are very different in so many ways. One of them: in order to keep the population under control, appointed Scythes roam the Earth killing carefully selected individuals. Citra and Rowan are both chosen to train to become a Scythe, but only one of them can succeed. The other can return to their normal life… or can they? Learning the ways of the Scythe is a profoundly (immortal) life-changing experience. It’s also extremely dangerous.

This chunky but not overwhelming book jumps back and forth between the perspective of Citra and Rowan, with journal entries (mostly from a third character who we are unsure who they are for the first half of the book) in between. Sometimes a third perspective, a more omniscient one, shows us a different band of characters. If that sounds confusing, it’s really not. The book is easy to read, engaging, and makes you think. It might be considered violent, though the approach to this violence is… unique. I thought The Hunger Games would be too much for me and it totally wasn’t. Same here.

I enjoyed the characters. I enjoyed the world-building. I enjoyed the amped-up plotline as it progressed. I enjoyed the insightfulness and consideration. And the twists. There were some twists that I rolled my eyes at—obviously!—but then a few more that surprised me. I always love when a book (justifiably) surprises me.

There’s not even that much for me to say here. I would recommend it. If you read YA dystopian, then you have already read this or certainly should. It’s bound to become a classic of the genre. Even an adult reading YA will enjoy this book, though they’ll have to remember that the main characters are teens and they are bound to do very teen-like things, make teen-ish decisions.

On that note, I will mention that plenty of adult or even new adult readers complain about this book having older themes but then the delivery is young. First of all, kids can handle just about any theme (we authors just write it differently). But what I really want to say is this:

We are guests in this genre (YA). We can respect what is being done in this space and enjoy what we can with understanding. It’s like being a tourist. Responsible tourists don’t trash the place. They notice that there is a different culture at play and they sometimes join in, sometimes step back, but almost never demand that things happen like they do at home. Because this is someone else’s home. In Scythe, we adults are guests and the natives are most likely young teens. Since YA has been trending older and more mature—ever toward new adult—I think it’s wonderful there are books that still make a space for ninth graders-ish. Yes, the romance in underdeveloped. Do the kids care? Not like we do. Etc.

I will agree though–as an adult–that the romance is underdeveloped.

The series continues with Thunderhead and The Toll, though it is possible to just read Scythe and be happy with the ending (which most people really love). There is also a book of short stories, Gleanings, that comes highly recommended if you want to know more about the world and are especially interested in the mind-tickling aspects of the series. And Shusterman has announced a prequel, as well. But with Scythe‘s 4.32 star review on Goodreads and the Printz Award (among others, including an almost unanimous book club “like” for the book club I read this in (need I say that almost never happens?)), you probably won’t stop there.

“In fact, in the grand scheme of things, everyone was equally useless. That’s what he was saying, and it infuriated Citra, because on a certain level, she knew he was right” (p11).

“But remember that good intentions pave many roads. Not all of them lead to hell” (p26).
“…they dismissed it in the self-serving way parents often had of pretending anything they can’t slove is not really a problem” (p38).

“What must life have been like in the Age of Mortallity? Full of passions, both good and bad. Fear giving rise to faith. Despair giving meaning to elation” (p46).

“I often wonder if the bright benefit of belief outweighed the darkness its abuse could bring” (p118).
“Nature deemed that to be born was an automatic sentence to death, and then brought about that death with vicious consistency” (p202).

“’Rightmindedness is overrated,’ Goddard said. ‘I’d rather have a mind that’s clear than one that’s right’” (p218).”

“Guilt is the idiot cousin of remorse” (p235).

“Being made to suffer pain frees us to feel the joy of being human” (p244).

“Without the threat of suffering, we can’t experience true joy. The best we get is pleasantness” (p244).
“The world has a talent for rewarding bad behavior with stardom” (p273).

“I believed, in my arrogance, that I had a keen grasp of the big picture that others lacked. But of course, I was just as limited as anyone else” (p273).

“I think all young women are cursed with a streak of unrelenting foolishness, and all young men are cursed with a streak of absolute stupidity” (p347).

“However, rot grows on even the sturdiest of foundations” (p434).

There are rumors of Steven Spielberg and Amblin Entertainment taking on the movie (or is it series?) adaptation of this book series. But I see no solid evidence of what’s happening, which could mean everything or nothing at all. We’ll wait and see.