Scythe (Arc of a Scythe, #1)

by Neal Shusterman

"A true successor to The Hunger Games." Maggie Stiefvater

In a perfect world, what is there left to fear? A chilling and thought-provoking sci-fi novel from New York Times bestselling author Neal Shusterman.

A dark, gripping and witty thriller in which the only thing humanity has control over is death.

In a world where disease, war and crime have been eliminated, the only way to die is to be randomly killed ("gleaned") by professional scythes. Citra and Rowan are teenagers who have been selected to be scythes' apprentices, and despite wanting nothing to do with the vocation, they must learn the art of killing and understand the necessity of what they do.

Only one of them will be chosen as a scythe's apprentice and as Citra and Rowan come up against a terrifyingly corrupt Scythedom, it becomes clear that the winning apprentice's first task will be to glean the loser.

• ISBN10: 1481485261
• ISBN13: 9781481485265
• Publish Date: 22 November 2016
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 17 June 2021
• Imprint: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
• Edition: Export ed.
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 448
• Language: English

Reviews

[Kim Deister]

In the future world of Scythe, virtually all aspects of life are managed by the Thunderhead, an all-knowing and all-powerful artificial intelligence that is fully sentient. Poverty and disease have been wiped out, and there is no longer any need for people to work or go to school, unless they so desire. Natural death has been eradicated, nanites in the bloodstream healing them and masking pain. Death is temporary, everyone revived quickly and painlessly. But unchecked population growth coupled with the lack of natural death has given rise to a special class of humanity, the Scythedom. Scythes perform random “gleanings,” true deaths from which one can’t be revived. The book centers around Citra and Rowan, two newly chosen Scythe apprentices who find themselves embroiled in a political miasma.

I’m fascinated by the concept of utopias and dystopias, and how the things that make one also creates the other. So I loved the premise of this book, and of the series. The idea of an AI running the world is equally interesting and terrifying. However, the concept of the Scythes was simply horrifying. And this is where I had a problem with the book. I felt as if there were some parts that could have been explored and developed more deeply. For example, other than meeting quotas, there is no real oversight for the Scythes. There is no regulation on the methodology, meaning one could be gleaned painlessly or torturously. There is no regulation on how those to be gleaned are chosen, leaving it open to ethnic or religious gleanings. There is no real discussion as to why that is, which seems like an opportunity lost.

But the truth is, I still enjoyed the book very much. It’s an intricate story that really looks at society, its values, and whether the new is necessarily better. And the characters are fantastic. There is a wide range of personalities, both good and bad. They were interesting and vivid, even the ones I had to hate! And the plot was wonderful. There are a hundred ways the author could have taken the story, but the path he chose was perfect. There was enough changed in the book’s world to be new and different, and enough the same to make it feel realistic and possible. There were lots of twists and turns that kept me turning the pages right to the very end. The end was very satisifying, too!

[tylerrosereads]

I wanted to like this book so much... All the hype and booktubers talking about how amazing it was.... We obviously didn't read the same book...

I kept pushing (but only to page 150) because I really liked the premises. But I was hoping for more of a conversation about human nature, morality, mortality, and the value of existence in a seeming Utopia... But did we talk about any of that? Hardly. One page vignettes of a diary is all we got.

The characters were bland and I had no drive to read about them, there were cheesy poor plot decisions, and just a lot of cringe teen romance I guess?

Good premise, poor execution

[nora]

Some thoughts:

- The world building is wack. Death and illness has been overcome, but the population still needs to be controlled - okay. Why did anyone think it would be a good idea to make a group of people abandon their lives in order to become serial killers? Why not instead limit the amount of births and stop people having 20 kids? Why not limit the amount or extent of revivals? Why not colonise some planets since they already know everything there is to know on Earth?

- Why isn't there a standardised, painless method that all Scythes are required to use? What on Earth is the point of giving them every single possible weapon and letting them go HAM on whoever they want?

- Why is there even so much focus on fighting and training? The only fighting they do is among themselves!

- There are virtually no stakes for the first 120 pages of the book. Citra and Rowan are asked to be Scythe apprentices. Neither of them really want the job, both have the option to decline. Then they're told they have to COMPETE. And both of them go yeah ok. So you're meant to care about two people competing for a position neither actually wants - why?

- Speaking of Citra and Rowan, there is a romance there, but we barely see them interact and all of a sudden they're both willing to die for each other.

- One thing about the big fat golden guy - I forget his name - really irks me. It's mentioned early in the book that nanites can regulate everyone's weight, and that Golden Snitch is overweight because he chooses to be. Cool cool. But then when he later has to jump in the pool, it's written as an embarrassing moment, in large (sorry) because he's a big guy. So which is it? Is he ashamed or does he own it??

- The Scythe outfits sound horrible tbh. Main Evil wears royal blue robes covered in diamonds, and then rolls up to the party in a matching royal blue, diamond-encrusted limousine...

- I'm not someone who can usually predict the twists and turns of a book. In this one I could see every plot point waving at me from a mile away.

- The way security footage is organised in the Thunderhead by related topics rather than by time and location just makes me really mad for some reason.

- All the Scythes go by their patron historic's surname, but then there's Scythe Anastasia *eye roll*

Thanks, bye

[alisoninbookland]

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That was twisted. So twisted. But also amazing? Once again, Shusterman proves he’s a genius at world building. This world is terrifying but also makes sense. There are some really interesting ideas explored through the story. Is there really a good way to kill someone?

The beginning of the story is a bit slow. It does take a while to settle yourself into this world and figure out exactly what’s going on. Once the story gets going, it really doesn’t stop.

The twists and turns are great. I really didn’t know what was going to happen. Shusterman knows how to pack a punch.

The character arcs of Citra and Rowan are great. I enjoyed seeing them settle into the roles thrust upon them. They approach the problems in different ways. At the heart of it they are good people which I think is desperately needed if they are to take on the job of Scythe.

The alternating stories of Citra and Rowan worked for me. I also grew to enjoy the journal entries from various Scythes between the chapters.

If you’re looking for a YA novel to make you think, this is a great pick.

[leahrosereads]

Holy shit, I wish I had jumped on this bandwagon when this book first came out. It was fantastic! The world felt expansive and fleshed out, and the characters were exceptionally well defined. The plot was interesting, and all of this combined, created a book that I couldn't put down, flew through, and had me craving more.

Luckily, I have another book that I can start right away with the third book coming out soon. Though, I think I'll be gutted by the end of it.

[HekArtemis]

This is one of those weird worlds where you can't quite tell if it is actually dystopian or not. It's not utopian of course, because no world can ever have a true utopia. But I think this series portrays a world as close to utopia as possible.

There is no death, no illness. Everyone can access a basic and quite livable income, but everyone also has the choice to work and earn more money if they want. People have the right and are given the means to rebel against the system. In any real dystopia such unsavouries as we see in the second book Thunderhead would not be allowed to do what they do, they definitely wouldn't have a whole system designed just to meet their rebellious desires. It's just not dystopian in any normal way.

The Scythedom kills people, to control the population. The chances of being gleaned by a scythe are extremely low. Most people are not anti-scythe, they understand the need for death and while no one wants to be gleaned, they accept the necessity and humans chose this - the Thunderhead refuses to be part of creating and taking life. The Scythedom doesn't exactly oppress anyone - again, this isn't dystopian, not really. Harsh and scary sure, but not dystopian, not any more than nature is dystopian. The corruption within the Scythedom is where we begin to see the beginnings of a possible dystopia to come. But without that corruption, the world just is not dystopian.

Except when we look at it in a different way, and this is where I love the book even more. It is noted multiple times from the very start that the lack of natural death, the apparent immortality of people, and the fact that things like depression are able to be cured with nanites, has created a state of nothingness for humans. People aren't scared or angry or depressed, but they aren't happy either. They lack the ability to love properly. They care less. jobs are irrelevant, the Thunderhead can do anything and everything, so researchers and engineers are truly irrelevant. Everyone knows that their jobs are worthless, their lives are pointless. The Thunderhead in no way forces any of this on people - there is a group that deactivates their nanites, refuse to have their bodies reanimated after death, and people have the right and ability to opt out of pretty much everything the Thunderhead has to offer. None of this melancholy worthlessness is forced on people, they literally are choosing it for themselves. And that is where the dystopia really lies, if there is any - humans are individually choosing to put themselves into a meaningless existence.

I don't know if that is really dystopian though. It doesn't seem like it. Whatever it is, it is sad.

The basic ideas of the story were great on the surface, the execution is amazing. That it is impossible to really determine whether this world is good or bad, utopian or dystopian, is fantastic, so very well done. I love it. And while I have obviously fallen most for the world building, I will note that the characters and plot lines were great too. I just happen to really love the world more. I would say I am looking forward to reading Thunderhead, but I have already read it before finally getting to this review and it's amazing too. I look forward to The Toll.

The only reason why I cannot give this book 5 stars is because I missed a more elaborate writing style. That’s definitely not a problem for most people, so I totally get the high ratings, this book was amazing!

Issues are represented in a way that makes them easy to understand and at the same time they are deeply layered and we see the view of multiple perspectives about these issues. The story itself started out predictable, but quickly changed course.

It felt like the scythes did have some layering, which was easy to grasp with their journal entries, but the main characters were a bit more flat.

This book felt totally unique, the futuristic world, the AI, the characters, the way people have to be gleaned. I have never read any other book of Neal Shusterman, but I highly encourage everyone to pick this one up. It’s an easy read but amazingly well done.

[vagasker]

My rating is so low because I could not finish this book. Maybe I read this at the wrong time in my life or maybe expected too much from it since a lot of people are raving about it, but I just could not finish it.

[moraa]

Absolutely enjoyed this one! Maybe because I've taken a break from YA for the past six months or so but I had a good time with this one.

[EBookObsessed]

It had an interesting premise that made you think. While it is geared towards a teen crowd, the basic premise is that everything has been figured out. There is nothing further to learn. No one dies anymore since disease is a thing of the past. So part of it is that people get bored with nothing really to do and since things are finite, certain people are selected to provide a necessary service and glean a certain amount of people each year so that the planet doesn't overpopulate.

Scythes only have a quota to reach each year but other than that there are not much in the way of guidelines. One scythe lives a plain life and uses old statistics to pick his gleans, another gleans those who seem to have checked out and no longer seem interested in living endlessly. Of course, there is the group that takes whatever they want from others and does mass gleanings.

I found this interesting in the fact that when life is handed to you, how easily it becomes boring, and how human nature will still find a way to twist utopia with corruption.