Good Morning Blogiverse,

I hope you’re having a great start to the week. Mine’s going pretty well. I’m getting used to my new job, and it’s a great feeling.

Today I’m sharing yet another book review, this time Scythe by Neal Shusterman.

This is a buddy read with Gigi aka The Beachy Reader that we easily agreed upon. We’d both been putting off reading this, and it’s high time we got to it!

This is my own personal review, soon to be followed up with a Buddy Read & Rant with Gigi.

Alright, let’s get into it!

Blurb:

Two teens are forced to murder—maybe each other—in the first in a chilling new series from Neal Shusterman, author of the New York Times bestselling Unwind dystology.

In a world where disease has been eliminated, the only way to die is to be randomly killed (“gleaned”) by professional reapers (“scythes”). Citra and Rowan are teenagers who have been selected to be scythe’s apprentices, and—despite wanting nothing to do with the vocation—they must learn the art of killing and come to understand the necessity of what they do.

Only one of them will be chosen as a scythe’s apprentice. And when it becomes clear that the winning apprentice’s first task will be to glean the loser, Citra and Rowan are pitted against one another in a fight for their lives.

GoodReads

The Review:

I gave this novel four and a half stars!

There are certain times after reading a stellar book where you simply have to slap your forehead and say “Have I been living under a rock?”

This was one of those times.

I’ve had this book on my TBR for ages, but kept putting it off because I’d never read anything by this author. Man am I glad I didn’t wait any longer!

Scythe is a YA Dystopian novel about two teens thrust into an impossible situation. They must compete for the most undesirable job in the world, a Scythe. Death doesn’t exist anymore, not in the natural sense. Scythes keep the world population from booming out of control, carefully selecting their victims on statistics and other parameters. But with Rowan and Citra both hating the idea, who will come out on top?

I was bookmatized, I tell you! This novel was amazing for so many reasons.

First and foremost the concept and plot was easily the strongest element for me. I love dystopian themes, and this one knocked it out of the park. In Scythe, we enter a world where everyone is essentially immortal with Reaper-like individuals killing the unfortunate ones to keep the population from growing out of control.

We get so much information about this world, all of it well-placed and extremely entertaining. It was hard to put this book down between chapters because I wanted to know everything. I was totally hooked.

The writing was expertly handled in YA style. It flowed so well, I don’t think I’ve read a book this year that can rival it. Whoever the editor is for Neal Shusterman deserves a raise, haha!

The characters were great, and in many different shades. Citra and Rowan are unwittingly thrown into this circumstance, and their reactions make sense. But it’s where they go from there that really captivated me. But just as important were the Scythes. Faraday, Curie, Goddard, the High Blade. Each had their own ideals that they stuck to that painted each of them in a different light, and I enjoyed all of the different viewpoints we got to see.

Which leads into my next point. This book had heart, a conscience, morality. It asked big questions and really got me thinking. I wasn’t expecting that and it was quite the amazing surprise.

If I had to pick at anything, I would say small parts could drag a smidgen, but I honestly didn’t care much. This book had everything I wanted and more, and I can’t wait to not only finish this series, but read other works by this author.

Inspirational, truly inspirational.

That’s a Wrap!

Thanks for stopping by, and happy reading!

Have you read this book before? What did you think? Do you have a book recommendation similar to this one? Feel free to share in the comments!

If you’d like to see other reviews of mine, feel free to check out the book review section of my blog or my GoodReads. You can also follow my GoodReads reviews here. There are some great binge-worthy books on there!

Have a great day!

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