Scythe (Arc of a Scythe, #1) opens Goodreads in a new tab
Neal Shusterman
A world with no hunger, no disease, no war, no misery. Humanity has conquered death, and Scythes are the only ones who can end life, 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 neither wants, and must master the art of taking life, knowing that the consequence of failure could mean losing their own. A Printz Honor-winning first book in the Arc of a Scythe series, from the author of the Unwind dystology.
Ebook, review only, not available to borrow.
- ISBN
- 9781442472426
- Edition
- Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
- Genre
- Sci-Fi
- Format
- Ebook
- Pages
- 435
My thoughts
3/5stars A fast paced YA dystopian novel where humans have conquered death, hunger, war and misery. They are in their peak. And we go on from there. I remember there was a whole wave of hype around this book four years ago and I totally missed it BUT I am glad I came back to it. Loved the concept, very promising. The political world was intriguing and apart from a few things here and there I did overall enjoy it. My greatest wish for humanity is not for peace or comfort or joy. It is that we all still die a little inside every time we witness the death of another. For only the pain of empathy will keep us human. There’s no version of God that can help us if we ever lose that. Few things I did not like in this book- 1. the way weight and body issues were handled in this book, some people (two, specifically) were called overweight and very disturbing stupid comparisons were made, which to be honest, I might not even have noticed four years ago but it did irk me now. 2. The whole idea of someone being brought back to life once they died seemed weird because then that means suicide is not taken seriously? it's a joke? maybe it did fit in with this world but it still felt odd. 3. The romance that was brewing (sort of? or not? i don't know) I WAS SO NOT OKAY with that, like what was the point? what was the need? God forbid if two heterosexual characters have a platonic relationship. 4. Lack of representation? Despite being at the peak of humanity, we aren't able to escape the gender binary norms and no where through the entire book do we see any enbys or GNC folks. Where did they all go? Without the threat of suffering, we can’t experience true joy. Tho these things did bother me quite a lot, reading it now in 2021 I still did enjoy the premise and politics and I think I might just continue reading just for that. And for the unpredictable turn of events towards the end. The greatest achievement of the human race was not conquering death. It was ending government. CWs for the book: Self Harm, Suicide, Murder
