Hello rad readers! Right off the bat, I need to let you all know that this is a must read for sure. In other words, an absolute banger of a piece of literature. It is totally different from basically anything I've read before.
P.S. this review will have no spoilers in it ;)
A little summary-- In the future, science and the human race is so advanced that there are no more struggles. There is an artificial intelligence that rules them and ensures that there is no pain, no hunger, no sadness, disease, war, poverty, and they even found a way to beat death. Because nobody dies naturally, of old age or accident, over population became a problem so they had adopted a system where a special group of people, Scythes, decide who dies. These Scythes kill, or as they say, "glean" selected people to keep the population numbers in check. Interactions with Scythes lead Citra and Rowan to become Scythe apprentices, training to become a killer in this society, something neither of the two want to become. They must, however, succeed, because if they don't they will be killed themselves.
I loved this book so much and have so many positive things to say about it! The idea in the first place is all absorbing and fascinating, and then the actual story itself is so thought provoking that I feel like it has really upped my standards in my rad reading life. All that takes place in this book is so wack and wild and it makes my brain twist into a pretzel. If you haven't read Scythe yet, I highly recommend it! I gave it 4/5 stars on GoodReads and think it is a total game changer in the world of us Rad Readers!
So, as a beyond avid GoodReads user, I can't help but note that it only has 2% of 2 star and below rated reviews. Those reviews mostly point out the rather melancholy gist of the story, which I understand to a degree. If they find that they overall theme of the book is death then I fear that they have missed a lot about it. In fact, most of the negative reviews that I had read, the reviewers admitted that they didn't finish the book because they didn't like the negativity and disturbing themes in the beginning of it. That right there is a C8's Rad Reads no go. Here on the rad reader site, we know that we must virtually always finish a book once we start it! Things can take a major turn in the last 200 or 100 or even 50 pages. Does that make it a masterpiece? No, but it does make it a better book than if you were to just stop in the middle of it. One time, long ago, I was reading Matched by Allie Condie. It was so bad upon the first couple chapters that I elected I would put it down for good, but one day, I decided to open it back up and read it through. No, my opinion didn't change, I still didn't like it, but now I feel as though I justly didn't like it. How can I fairly discredit a book that I never even finished!? I can't!
Some negative reviews claimed that for a YA book, it was boring. To that I ask, did we read the same book? Never a moment in this story did I think it was boring. How can you get bored of a story when you are always scared that someone is about to get Gleaned, or one of our main characters are in trouble, or we are looking at evil Scythes who mass glean entire mall food courts or airplane passengers? How in the world can one find that boring! It's terrifyingly intriguing. Sure, the first couple months Citra and Rowan are apprenticing, it isn't the most fast paced of events, but the lessons they are learning and the topics being discussed are very intriguing, and that is undeniable. That is how Neil Schusterman built the world. Without that somewhat slow pacing we would have a very surface level understanding of this world which would take away from one of the best things about this book! The complexity of the world. The last time I read about such a well developed complex world was when I was reading the shadow hunter books!
The world, I find so fascinating, because it really doesn't sound like a crazy dystopian science fiction created world. It sounds like something that could really happen and that is almost what is so engaging about it. "The Cloud" in the book is eerily reminiscent of "the cloud" that we store all of our pictures and computer or phone data in today. The idea of an intelligence knowing all about everyone is eerily similar to the security systems being developed in certain countries. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that one day we will have a selected group of people going around killing people, but I found the believability of this world to be one of the most gripping aspects of the story. I was so impressed by all of it!
I loved these characters so much, but what I loved even more was the fact that while their morality, values, and beliefs are being questioned, so is the readers. If you want to think deep, this is the type of book for you. Where books like The Selection or The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer are some of my favorite book series for purely the entertainment factor, and I constantly say that a book does not have to be deep to be good, this is one of the best books I've read because of the extreme depth and complexity and intrigue of it. Reading about princesses and vampires and shadow hunters is really really cool and all, but every so often getting your hands on a book that makes you take a step back and think about life and humanity and yourself, it is very much worth lots of praise. While this book does have depth, it also has what makes young adult books so great as well, believable characters and fun dynamics. The two main characters, Citra and Rowan, were so strongly written. You can really see them develop as the story goes on, there is no insta-development or sudden realizations or insta-loves (a trope that I cannot stand... I swear some authors don't realize that just about everything in life takes time) and that type of character dynamic makes you want to keep on reading.
Just about everything in this book was incredible, I didn't want to spoil anything because I wanted to dedicate an entire blog post as to why everyone should read this book. Although this will not take a spot on my "raddest reads" list, it is certainly an amazing and fascinating book that I think you should totally check out!
Ave atque vale!
- C8 ;)