Scythe by Neal Shusterman
Started: 18 January 2021
Finished: 23 January 2021
This book’s concept is right up my alley: humanity has overcome death, and all humans are immortal. So, in order to control the population and maintain society, a deathly bureaucracy is established, the Scythedom, who alone has the ability to ‘glean’ and end life permanently.
This books premise was, admittedly, a little more promising than the execution of the world and story. I enjoyed it, but some of the elements felt a little shoe-horned in, and the worldbuilding asks the reader to buy wholesale into several hefty premises up front without really explaining how humanity logically arrived at this point. This book takes place in a future earth; I think I might have found it easier to slip into the logic of the book if this was another planet or world altogether.
I’m intrigued enough by the characters to continue on in the trilogy, but at the end of the day I wanted more examination of original premise that hooked me so deeply, and less of the futuristic-mystery-star crossed lovers-story that was executed.
2021 Reads:
- This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal el-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
- Shuri by Nic Stone
- Scythe by Neal Shusterman