REVIEW | "Scythe" by Neal Shusterman

btw, this is the German cover version

Title: Scythe
Author: Neal Shusterman
Publisher: Walker Books
Genre: dystopia
ISBN: 978-1406379242
Page Number: 448

(all information applies to this version, not to the one shown in the photo)




Blurb 
Thou shalt kill.
A world with no hunger, no disease, no war, no misery. Humanity has conquered all those things, and has even conquered death. Now scythes are the only ones who can end life—and they are commanded to do so, in order to keep the size of the population under control.
Citra and Rowan are chosen to apprentice to a scythe—a role that neither wants. These teens must master the “art” of taking life, knowing that the consequence of failure could mean losing their own.

Execution
In the beginning, the book was rather slow paced which is why it took me a while to really get into the story.
The narrative style is very interesting: it's told from both of the main protagonists, Citras and Rowans point of view but it doesn't really read like a normal book - it's hard to describe but I think it reminds me a bit of the narrative in a text book (which isn't, by all means, meant negatively) because the writing is very simplistic and matter of factly. At the end of each chapter there is a diary entry from some of the other character's diaries which give you an interesting insight into their perspectives and additionally, allow the reader inspection into the politics and history of the world.
There are a lot of plot twists in the book which I absolutely did not see coming and which kept me at the edge of my seat the entire time.
In the end, everything just fits together and you see how well crafted the story is: every single detail is important and has a deeper meaning to the story. Hence, although it picked up a bit slowly in the beginning, I though the book as a whole was incredibly well executed.

Characters
We follow two main protagonists in the story, Citra and Rowan.
The two of them are quite opposite from one another: while Citra is a character with a hard shell and a soft core, she is impulsive and often talks and acts without thinking about the consequences first, Rowan is introduced as a nice, sensitive guy. Both of them go through an amazing character development though due to things that happen in the book and that change them in very different ways.
All of the characters are very well crafted and I loved seeing them interact with each other. They all felt very realistic and every single one of them had a purpose to fulfill.

Emotions
Although the pace in the beginning was slow and I couldn't read too much at once then, I had an instant connection to the characters which made it easy for me to build an emotional connection to the story.
What I really appreciate about the book though is that it made me think a lot. The overall concept of a post-mortality society is very unique and I found it very interesting to think about the effects it has on humankind. Almost everything that defines us as human changes with taking our mortality away and seeing that play out in the story was both very scary and didactic.

Overall
Altogether, I really enjoyed reading Scythe. At this point, dystopias are a bit overdone, especially in YA literature, but this one was very exceptional and I can really recommend it to anyone who is tired of the average dystopia tropes and wants something that is a bit more unique.