Teen Review: Scythe

Scythe is a dystopian book that shows what a world without natural death would look like. I was recommended to read this book by my English teacher because the unique premise made her think it would be interesting to me.  

In the world of Scythe, you cannot die naturally, but the population is controlled by the Scythes, who are people trained to kill people or “glean” them. Citra and Rowan are selected to be trained to become Scythes, and they must learn how to glean people. While seeing how Scythes operate, they start questioning how ethical this population control method really is. Citra and Rowan’s morals are tested when they realize that only one of them will leave as a Scythe.  

This concept for a book is so unique, and Shusterman explored some really difficult questions while keeping the plot mostly fast-paced. While reading, I found that Citra and Rowan were very well-developed characters and had a clear arc throughout the novel. Shusterman’s writing style was mostly easy to read, but some parts of the story felt really slow, while other parts felt kind of skipped over.  Shusterman was able to build an easy-to-visualize world, and the journals from other Scythes added some depth to the other characters and their actions.  

I would recommend Scythe to anyone who enjoyed books like The Hunger Games, Divergent, or Legend. It was a 3.5/5 for me!