Scythe by Neal Shusterman- Book Review

There are certain themes that run through the holiday season- happiness, hope, joy, and of course straight up death and destruction. Ok, maybe not so much the last part, but for some reason I decided this holiday would be a good time to read Scythe, the first of a new series by Neal Shusterman.

Scythe is the story of Citra and Rowan, two scythes in training picked by a leading scythe. Scythes are the new death bringers in a society where death is no more. Sickness, death, and aging have all been cured, so the society created a group of Scythes who randomly choose people to be eliminated from society. Scythes are above the law and are only self governed. Youth are picked to be part of a training program to become future Scythes. The only way a Scythe can be stopped is if a Scythe chooses self death.

Once Citra and Rowan are picked, the Scythe community decides only one of them can become a scythe, so now they are in instant competition with one another. The other aspect is whichever Scythe wins, the first person he/she must reap is the other.

More of the story continues as the two are also separated with one going down a traditional route and the other headed toward a bloodthirsty Scythe who loves to reap whole groups. What will happen as time ticks forward?

The thing that will be noticed immediately before reading this book is this is a long book. At  just shy of 500 pages, this book takes a long time to get to the ending we are waiting for. It is told in three parts bouncing back and forth between Citra and Rowan’s perspectives on what is happening in their lives. We also can guess where the book is headed at times, but there is a good enough twist to keep readers reading. Even at its heft, I found myself immersed in the world.

I will state the ending was sort of ruined for me when I found out 1. There is a sequel and 2. The cover of said sequel. Even knowing that, it was a great read.

I gave it 3.5 stars.