Neal Shusterman’s Scythe is the first book in the Arc of a Scythe.
After thousands of years, humanity has finally created the perfect world. They have conquered disease, famine, misery, and death. Now the only way to die is at the hands of a Scythe. Revered, respected, and feared, Scythes are commanded to kill in order to keep the population down. Two young teens are chosen to be apprenticed by a Scythe. While neither wants to be a scythe, they study the deadly arts knowing that the consequence for failure is death.
The story is told in 3rd person and constantly switches between characters, but two receive the most attention. Citra Terranova is a smart and compassionate girl. She was born to a small family in a world without war. Her strength and passion attracted the attention of the scythe who took her to be his apprentice. Despite her initial dislike of the apprenticeship, her competitive nature drives her to strive for Scythdom. Through her tenure as an apprentice physiological trials strengthen her morality and open her eyes to the world she lives in. Rowan Damisch is a quiet observer. He grew in a large family and always felt forgotten. His compassion for others attracted the attention of a scythe, yet earned him the scorn of others. Like Citra, he did not want to be a scythe and finds scythe work both gruesome and saddening. Rowan has an extremely strong moral compass, but faces both physical and psychological trials that test it again and again. These trials that break him emotionally, and comes out of the book an entirely new character.
Scythe is a great book. The pacing is extremely slow. The plot crawls along at a snail’s pace as it builds a perfect world. It allows us to learn about the characters and the people before showing us the cracks and faults. About halfway through the book, the pacing finally picks up and there is a steady rise in tension until the book’s end. The books best feature is the remarkable “What if” world it creates. Neal Shusterman builds a perfect world without war or disease. The world is controlled by the Thunderhead, AI that takes care of humanity and removes humans from power, freeing the world from corruption. The only place where the Thunderhead is forbidden from acting is with the Scythes, the deliverers of death in a world of immortality. Revered and feared, Scythes kill to control the population size. A world like this raises questions about immortality. What do people do when there is no longer anything to live or die for? What happens when people have never truly felt pain? How do people cope in a society founded on death? Each character has a unique take on the world they live in. Their unique perspectives define them and influence the personalities of others around them.
I give this 435 page book 4 stars.
Arc of a Scythe
Humanity has finally conquered hunger, famine, disease, and death. Now death is left in the hands of the Scythes, a group of humans commanded to control the population