Scythe by Neal Schusterman (SciFi)

Scythe is the first book of The Arc of a Scythe series. The author of the book is Neal Shusterman. It is set in the far future, where humans have conquered almost all natural causes of death due to advancements in technology. The scientist who discovered the advancement was Michael Faraday. The only people who can kill are scythes. The Thunderhead is a form of artificial intelligence that controls society. The Thunderhead cannot break its rules and is separate from the Scythedom. The Scythedom is an organization that is tasked with deciding which people die, because overpopulation is still a problem. Scythes can "glean" people, which means to permanently kill a person. A scythe must glean a certain amount of people a month. Two teenagers impress Scythe Faraday and he decides to give them an apprenticeship to become a scythe. When they go into the first conclave, Citra makes a mistake answering a question that Scythe Marie Curie, the Granddame of Death, gave and Rowan also fails purposely. The other scythes say that a scythe cannot have two apprentices and if they do, only one can become a scythe and the other must be gleaned by the other upon reaching scythehood.

I think that this book is really good and I definitely recommend this book to people who like Science Fiction or Dystopian Fiction. This book never had a dull moment while reading it and I think that Shusterman portrayed all the character's reactions and emotions really accurately. Shusterman I think gives readers a visual into their personal lives, and how they interact with each other and the world around them. Shusterman's way of wording definitely has a way of catching the reader's attention, and really makes the reader feel they know the characters on a personal level as if they were friends or acquaintances. The way their emotions are so vivid gives readers a better understanding, and helps them visualize the characters' everyday activities from complex things such as studying weaponry and poisons to things as simple simple maths and algebra. Shusterman's connections to real world situations are phenomenal. He uses many literary elements to help you understand how events connect to our daily lives. One of the biggest that stood out to me personally was the bias amongst Scythes “Gleaning”.  I like to make personal connections between the police in our life to the scythes in the book. Making this connection I also believe that the bias that is shown by scythes on who they “glean” can be related to real world bias amongst police, and how some corrupt police show bias in the work field among minorities by stereotyping or racial discrimination. 

Reviewed by Jason S. Grade 8