Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Scythe by Neal Shusterman

64 reviews

coramae's review

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Kidnapping, Child death, Death, Torture, Blood, Physical abuse, Mass/school shootings, Body horror, and Grief

Moderate: War, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Suicide, and Violence

renreadsbooks's review

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes

4.5

They just aren’t making books like this anymore. Written in the golden age of dystopian YA, this book was just insanely captivating, original and fresh in the sludge that is recent releases. Precise and consistent world building that was easy to follow along. Complex multi layered, fully fleshed out characters. And just enough twists and turns with steady pacing for the plot. I loved this book and wish I would have read it sooner. Cannot wait to finish the series.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Mass/school shootings

Moderate: Suicide attempt, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Medical content, Suicide, and Violence

megan_j's review

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Enjoyed this. Wasn’t great wasn’t awful but it definitely kept me interested throughout. All the main characters are likeable (maybe not LOVABLE) and I feel like they might be a bit flat sometimes. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Grief, Gun violence, Self harm, Blood, Child death, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, Genocide, Murder, Religious bigotry, Mass/school shootings, and Medical content

fanboyriot's review against another edition

adventurous dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I feel like I put off reading this book for so long because Sci-Fi wasn’t my genre but this book was good.  I feel like I probably would have liked it more as a teenager.  While the plot was entertaining it also left a few things unexplained.  It just felt a little dull at some moments and dragged out for others.  

I also kinda had a pet peeve about Citra’s and Rowan’s relationship, it felt very forced and out of place.  It was honestly uncomfortable to read, it was like because they were around the same age they had to wind up together…

Spice Level: n/a

Release Date: 16, November 2016

POV: Duel, Third Person

Rep:  n/a

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Blood, Gun violence, Violence, Mass/school shootings, Gore, Suicide, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Bullying, Racism, Toxic relationship, Self harm, Body horror, Physical abuse, Religious bigotry, Genocide, Torture, Grief, and Fatphobia

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders and Confinement

a_cera_t0ps's review

adventurous dark hopeful reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Very obviously part of a series. It's like watching season 1 of a very well tied together show; you need to keep reading. And Neal Shusterman does a very good job of making you want to.

The book looked at the inherent fault in the concept of a utopia: to be flawed is to be human. To live is to one day die. To love is to risk losing.
In a perfect world, humanity ends up desensitized and stagnant. There are no big emotions, no real wants, and no true progress. Life is boring. The only thing that's still human, ironically, is found in the most horrific, inhumane act someone could commit. Humanity barely lives, and the rest just live to die. To kill. To "glean," as a shiny, perfect, desensitized world would prefer to call it.

The book has a refreshing take on the future. It believes that, if we were to cure death before fighting our way into space, we would never leave. We would grow comfortable in safety, and seek vanquish any attempts to jeopardize it. It was interesting, and I felt it was realistic.

Neal Shusterman shows just how bad humanity is. True humanity leads to the worst of the worst worming their way into power every time. True humanity values themselves over morality. True humanity is ignorant and judgemental. True humanity, simply put, is dangerous. Yet, I we strip mankind of its sin, we are left with nothing worthwhile.

The plot is well connected. It wraps enough of the story up to have a clear, clean plot while still establishing conflict to be dealt with in the following books.

The characters well fleshed out nicely. The ones that were meant to be likeable were wonderful. The antagonists were scary. If not in a thriller/horror way, in a philosophical way. You didn't want them to win, but the threat of their success was just too real. Each response to the conflicts were clever. Nothing was too predictable to be enjoyable or too convoluted to be good storytelling.

The Shustermans are amazing, as always <3

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Violence, Death, Murder, and Suicide

Moderate: Religious bigotry, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Bullying, Gun violence, Gore, Mass/school shootings, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

laurenedeaton's review

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

YEAH

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Death, Murder, Grief, Gun violence, Mass/school shootings, Car accident, Kidnapping, Child death, and Violence

Moderate: Suicide

cadybooks's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Fatphobia, Body shaming, Abandonment, Religious bigotry, Death, Kidnapping, Gaslighting, Police brutality, Physical abuse, Grief, Animal death, Suicide, Medical content, Mass/school shootings, Gun violence, Blood, Torture, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Murder, Medical trauma, Child abuse, Bullying, Injury/Injury detail, and Body horror

rachel_anne_krauz95's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Grief, Murder, Torture, Emotional abuse, Suicide, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Classism, and Blood

jadejade's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

If you want Young Adult melodrama with interesting worldbuilding, this might be for you. It explores what a world would be like where humanity has conquered death but still needs to cull people to avoid overpopulation. Of course a pair of teenagers end up being in the centre of events that will reshape the world. Of course they end up being so highly skilled (and within a very short period) that they are able to deal with most people who get in their way: I think towards the end of the book, one the character is executing flips while doing so. There's an antagonist who may as well be twirling his moustache, and there's a scene near the end which I swear was inspired by Anakin's speech to Padme in Star Wars Episode II about the Tusken Raiders he slaughtered. Thunderhead is giving me the slightest vibes of Aiden from the Illuminae Files, which is also piquing my interest.

I didn't mind following our two main teenaged characters but they aren't interesting enough alone to make me want to follow their story. However, I found the different philosophies of the different Scythes, and the general population's response to a world where death is not inevitable, to be interesting enough that I think I will continue the series. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicide attempt, Death, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Fatphobia, Torture, Medical content, Gun violence, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Child death, Murder, Death of parent, Religious bigotry, and Grief

zsometimesreads's review

adventurous funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Murder

Moderate: Grief, Fire/Fire injury, and Suicide

Minor: Self harm and Blood