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A review by soupstix
Scythe by Neal Shusterman
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
0.5
if i'm being quite honest, nothing about this book caught my attention. the premise is mildly interesting, but i never would've picked it up on my own. after my disastrous encounter with <i>death warrant</i>, i'd implicitly sworn off of male authors and, given my history with ya novels, i've increasingly strayed away from the genre as i've gotten older. i've never been a big fan of dystopian ya novels either, although i did once adore <the giver> and its sequels. i only read this because my little cousin asked me to... and so i slogged through this awful book.
mild spoilers ahead, so be warned.
firstly, the narration was so...dry. which was mildly irritating at first, but had me wanting to glean (haha) myself halfway through the novel. the most stand-out parts to me were the unnecessary fatphobic jokes (particularly pertaining to esme... she is a nine-year-old girl. why are characters focusing on how fit or not fit she is?) and that one uncomfortable throwaway remark about how scythe rand would want to do "lewd things" with rowan once he became of age as a result of his training honing his physique. these are all small, inconsequential passages within the text, i realize. however, they are the only pieces of text of note because they are the only parts that i had any kind of emotional reaction to. the rest of the novel is just an unbearably mind-numbing slog of the most boring worldbuilding known to man. near the end of the novel, i realized i hardly had any idea what citra and rowan or scythe farraday looked like because shusterman's writing style is frustratingly bare-bones.
citra and rowan are ... characters, for sure. they're very tropey and clichéd, which i can't really fault them for since this is a ya novel, but i can't forgive their severe lack of chemistry. immediately upon meeting, they mildly dislike each other despite some very contrived attraction. then they hardly seem to interact before they're separated, after which citra ponders over how rowan has changed and rowan has resigned himself to a boring, sacrificial fate. and then they end up in love, of course, despite the lack of build-up or even any form of interaction during the bulk of the entire book.
the morality was also so painfully dull. there's "good" scythes, the traditional scythes who want to uphold the original tenets of scythedom. then there's the "bad" scythes -- who have been rebranded as "forward-thinking" -- who indiscriminately kill just for the fun of it, and people follow them just because their ideas are new and fresh. i found myself greatly confused by the character of scythe volta, who follows scythe goddard because he's a "<i>visionary</i>" but gives absolutely no true reason for why he believes he <i>needs</i> to follow goddard. it's purely because he views goddard as a visionary--but why? there's no rationalization for it. it feels as though shusterman is afraid to delve into why goddard's modus operandi is so appealing to so many of these background characters, much to the detriment of this book, because it ends up making goddard flatly and cartoonishly evil. oddly, it reads as though this novel is championing conservatism, at least in respect to whatever's going on in scythe society, because change seems to be synonymous with goddard's specific brand of destruction, hedonism, and megalomania, while tradition is associated with moral ascetism and righteousness.
i will say i found scythe curie's journal entries to be somewhat interesting at first with her ponderance over human nature and morality, but the appearance of her character outside of those journal entries completely undercut that. she's strangely dismissive of rowan immediately after he's taken under the wing of goddard, which paints a picture of very black-and-white morality. her past romance with faraday was also just... so creepy! what do you mean 17-year-old curie was going to slide into bed with a sleeping 22-year-old faraday so that she could "be with him"? this is why i've renounced male authors! what is this weird dismissal of consent! i think there was also something mildly interesting about the concept of stagnation in immortality? that i don't think was explored to its fullest potential and might be elaborated on in the sequel books... but with how much i hated this one, there's no way i'm touching the rest of this trilogy.
also, i'm surprised how no one in the reviews has pointed out how blatantly christian this book is. i don't necessarily have a problem with christianity, but this books plays out a form of unaware secular christianity that doesn't challenge its own worldview whatsoever. the ten scythe commandments are an unambigious biblical reference to the ten commandments ("thou shalt kill" -- "thou shalt not kill"). there's also the all-powerful ai cloud -- or i'm sorry, <i>almost</i> all-powerful -- that is loving and caring and knows everything about everyone and is perfect in its morality and whose own self-imposed rule to not interfere in scythedom is what allows corruption to persist... it seems much like an allegory for the christian god who is, of course, perfect in his morality but also doesn't interfere in humanity's sin. and let's not forget about the tonists, whose religion is painted as a joke by most of society, but who are ultimately shown to be dutifully faithful and therefore... perhaps moral? to me, it seemed a pretty blatant allegory for how christianity is more popularly undermined and mocked by atheists/non-christians in the general populace, but where christianity would ultimately turn out to be a higher form of morality that non-believers simply don't understand but will soon learn to. (just to be clear: i am not christian, nor do i have anything against christianity in itself, i'm just stating what messages i feel that the author was conveying, whether intentional or not.)
overall, there was something so... bleak about this book. the character relationships all lacked warmth and love. i understand that for rowan this was by design (as the lettuce), but his friendship with tyger was so gloomily transactional. he (nor did any of the other characters) did not treat esme with any kindness, just annoyance and toleration. his development with citra was nonsensical because there was nothing there at all. citra managed to have somewhat more emotional weight in her relationships with other characters -- but her supposed decent relationship with her family felt more told rather than shown (she hardly spared them a thought during her training, although her test with her younger brother was a bit sweet). and although she ... sort of? has moments with farraday and curie, they still feel hollow. more to move the plot along, rather than to develop interesting relationships.
anyways, sorry little cousin. i truly did not like this book at all, but i'm just not the demographic for it either. and hey, maybe if the rumored movie version of this book turns out to be a truly unfaithful adaptation, i'll spare it a watch.
mild spoilers ahead, so be warned.
firstly, the narration was so...dry. which was mildly irritating at first, but had me wanting to glean (haha) myself halfway through the novel. the most stand-out parts to me were the unnecessary fatphobic jokes (particularly pertaining to esme... she is a nine-year-old girl. why are characters focusing on how fit or not fit she is?) and that one uncomfortable throwaway remark about how scythe rand would want to do "lewd things" with rowan once he became of age as a result of his training honing his physique. these are all small, inconsequential passages within the text, i realize. however, they are the only pieces of text of note because they are the only parts that i had any kind of emotional reaction to. the rest of the novel is just an unbearably mind-numbing slog of the most boring worldbuilding known to man. near the end of the novel, i realized i hardly had any idea what citra and rowan or scythe farraday looked like because shusterman's writing style is frustratingly bare-bones.
citra and rowan are ... characters, for sure. they're very tropey and clichéd, which i can't really fault them for since this is a ya novel, but i can't forgive their severe lack of chemistry. immediately upon meeting, they mildly dislike each other despite some very contrived attraction. then they hardly seem to interact before they're separated, after which citra ponders over how rowan has changed and rowan has resigned himself to a boring, sacrificial fate. and then they end up in love, of course, despite the lack of build-up or even any form of interaction during the bulk of the entire book.
the morality was also so painfully dull. there's "good" scythes, the traditional scythes who want to uphold the original tenets of scythedom. then there's the "bad" scythes -- who have been rebranded as "forward-thinking" -- who indiscriminately kill just for the fun of it, and people follow them just because their ideas are new and fresh. i found myself greatly confused by the character of scythe volta, who follows scythe goddard because he's a "<i>visionary</i>" but gives absolutely no true reason for why he believes he <i>needs</i> to follow goddard. it's purely because he views goddard as a visionary--but why? there's no rationalization for it. it feels as though shusterman is afraid to delve into why goddard's modus operandi is so appealing to so many of these background characters, much to the detriment of this book, because it ends up making goddard flatly and cartoonishly evil. oddly, it reads as though this novel is championing conservatism, at least in respect to whatever's going on in scythe society, because change seems to be synonymous with goddard's specific brand of destruction, hedonism, and megalomania, while tradition is associated with moral ascetism and righteousness.
i will say i found scythe curie's journal entries to be somewhat interesting at first with her ponderance over human nature and morality, but the appearance of her character outside of those journal entries completely undercut that. she's strangely dismissive of rowan immediately after he's taken under the wing of goddard, which paints a picture of very black-and-white morality. her past romance with faraday was also just... so creepy! what do you mean 17-year-old curie was going to slide into bed with a sleeping 22-year-old faraday so that she could "be with him"? this is why i've renounced male authors! what is this weird dismissal of consent! i think there was also something mildly interesting about the concept of stagnation in immortality? that i don't think was explored to its fullest potential and might be elaborated on in the sequel books... but with how much i hated this one, there's no way i'm touching the rest of this trilogy.
also, i'm surprised how no one in the reviews has pointed out how blatantly christian this book is. i don't necessarily have a problem with christianity, but this books plays out a form of unaware secular christianity that doesn't challenge its own worldview whatsoever. the ten scythe commandments are an unambigious biblical reference to the ten commandments ("thou shalt kill" -- "thou shalt not kill"). there's also the all-powerful ai cloud -- or i'm sorry, <i>almost</i> all-powerful -- that is loving and caring and knows everything about everyone and is perfect in its morality and whose own self-imposed rule to not interfere in scythedom is what allows corruption to persist... it seems much like an allegory for the christian god who is, of course, perfect in his morality but also doesn't interfere in humanity's sin. and let's not forget about the tonists, whose religion is painted as a joke by most of society, but who are ultimately shown to be dutifully faithful and therefore... perhaps moral? to me, it seemed a pretty blatant allegory for how christianity is more popularly undermined and mocked by atheists/non-christians in the general populace, but where christianity would ultimately turn out to be a higher form of morality that non-believers simply don't understand but will soon learn to. (just to be clear: i am not christian, nor do i have anything against christianity in itself, i'm just stating what messages i feel that the author was conveying, whether intentional or not.)
overall, there was something so... bleak about this book. the character relationships all lacked warmth and love. i understand that for rowan this was by design (as the lettuce), but his friendship with tyger was so gloomily transactional. he (nor did any of the other characters) did not treat esme with any kindness, just annoyance and toleration. his development with citra was nonsensical because there was nothing there at all. citra managed to have somewhat more emotional weight in her relationships with other characters -- but her supposed decent relationship with her family felt more told rather than shown (she hardly spared them a thought during her training, although her test with her younger brother was a bit sweet). and although she ... sort of? has moments with farraday and curie, they still feel hollow. more to move the plot along, rather than to develop interesting relationships.
anyways, sorry little cousin. i truly did not like this book at all, but i'm just not the demographic for it either. and hey, maybe if the rumored movie version of this book turns out to be a truly unfaithful adaptation, i'll spare it a watch.