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sasquach135's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Murder, Death, Gore, and Gun violence
Moderate: Death, Mass/school shootings, Torture, Suicide attempt, and Suicide
kaylo88'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? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Wow what can I say about this book?!
It completely blew me away! It's easily one of the most captivating reads I've come across in a long time. Initially, I was skeptical due to the high praise it received, but it not only lived up to the hype but exceeded all my expectations. I was engrossed from the very beginning.
The concept of a world where humans are immortal, but a group of individuals called "scythes" are tasked with controlling the population by choosing who should die was absolutely fascinating. The moral and ethical dilemmas it presented were thought-provoking. Even though the scythes had commands to live by it was interesting to see how those rules can be bent depending on everyone's interpretations.
The characters were all incredibly well-crafted, each with their own flaws and complexities. Even the antagonist was so well-written that I found myself loving to hate them. The pacing of the book was perfect, the writing was top-notch, and it kept me on the edge of my seat throughout.
I've already added the rest of the books in the series to my reading list, and I'm eagerly looking forward to diving back into this world. I sincerely hope they are as addictive as this first book.
It completely blew me away! It's easily one of the most captivating reads I've come across in a long time. Initially, I was skeptical due to the high praise it received, but it not only lived up to the hype but exceeded all my expectations. I was engrossed from the very beginning.
The concept of a world where humans are immortal, but a group of individuals called "scythes" are tasked with controlling the population by choosing who should die was absolutely fascinating. The moral and ethical dilemmas it presented were thought-provoking. Even though the scythes had commands to live by it was interesting to see how those rules can be bent depending on everyone's interpretations.
The characters were all incredibly well-crafted, each with their own flaws and complexities. Even the antagonist was so well-written that I found myself loving to hate them. The pacing of the book was perfect, the writing was top-notch, and it kept me on the edge of my seat throughout.
I've already added the rest of the books in the series to my reading list, and I'm eagerly looking forward to diving back into this world. I sincerely hope they are as addictive as this first book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder and Suicide attempt
shayna14's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Kidnapping, Child death, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Medical content, Murder, Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicide, and Suicidal thoughts
hilocrasher's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Murder
caitlin6776's review
adventurous
dark
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
4.75
I loved the strong female leads in this book and the very very subtle affection of the two main characters. It was clear that they were too worried about the hell they were going through to worry about falling in love. Old guard vs new was great! Can't wait to read the next books!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Murder and Violence
brebeingwell's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Scythe is an interesting thought experiment involving immortality, morality, corruption, and bias. It follows two teenagers who are training to become scythes as they unearth the corruption and darkness in our "perfect" world.
The book was well written with interesting journal entries. I am very attached to the plot points and my mind is spinning thinking of how the next book might unfold. However, the reason it did not get a 5 star rating from me is I am not very attached to the characters. I hope in time I will be.
The book was well written with interesting journal entries. I am very attached to the plot points and my mind is spinning thinking of how the next book might unfold. However, the reason it did not get a 5 star rating from me is I am not very attached to the characters. I hope in time I will be.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Blood, Suicide, Kidnapping, Violence, Gun violence, Death, Murder, and Body horror
mcpod's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide, Murder, and Death
marleya's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Death, Classism, Murder, and Gun violence
Minor: Suicide and Suicidal thoughts
kristins3's review
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
1.5
There were some interesting thoughts on morality in this book, but overall I just couldn't really suspend my disbelief enough to accept the premise. I just don't believe that people would accept the Scythes, especially when they do occasionally kill children and their methods of choice of up to the individual and thus not really transparent. Further, why would anyone think it was okay to give people violent and torturous ends as a method of population control? If people were going to accept a system like this, I think there would need to be some guarantee of lasting at least until a certain age and it would need to be systematic and minimally painful. It's not something like the Hunger Games, where one group clearly has all the resources and weaponry/army and that group is never in danger from the brutality so they may choose not to protest it (and even indulge in it). Everyone has a risk of being purged here, and the people doing the purging are usually working solo, so even if they have the primary weapons, sufficient people could definitely take them on. I understand people may come after them, but I think that would just start a chain of attacks on the scythes. They're not some sort of centralized army, and we've seen at one of their events that civilians/non-scythes are developing new and powerful weapons all the time. There's no way someone wouldn't raid one of those factories (potentially even working with people on the inside) and go after the scythes.
That said, I did find the last couple of chapters exciting and adventurous. Even if I didn't totally buy the premise of the surrounding society, I had an easier time accepting it when they were just dealing with the politics among the Scythes.
As others have said, the romance was really forced and made no sense. It felt like it was just added because that's what you put in a YA book.
It's funny the the "cloud evolved to the Thunderhead" when the Thunderhead is supposed to be AI which isn't really what cloud typically refers too. I really hated the cloud-based imagery surrounding the AI for that reason.
They established that people are dying at much lower rates from the scythes than they were from issues in mortal ages, but Faraday establishes that he tries to kill people from various demographics at similar rates to what their actual fatality rate would have been in the past, which makes no sense. Further, they also established that people are still having a lot of children, so I don't see how this solves the supposed population overgrowth problem. Only one person talks about it having anything to do with "stagnation," so this does not seem to be the main motivation. The population growth is explained away by "the Thunderhead takes care of it" but if they're really killing that few of people each year, it should practically be a rounding error in managing them.
Further, it does not make sense for public sentiment to turn away from space research if they are really out of space. First of all, there will always be adventurers willing to risk their lives for missions like that. Second, even if there weren't wouldn't people prefer to be given a shot at working on a space mission and possibly dying a catastrophic failure than just being killed by a scythe? You would need engineers to work on the missions, but I would think they would at least make an attempt with randomly selected passengers if they were really so intent on getting rid of people. Overall, the premise of this book was just something I couldn't accept - I think the scythes would have needed some sort of more extreme power or overwhelming numbers to prevent the population from rising up against them. When we were only dealing with scythes or scythe politics, it was easier to accept because there wasn't this overwhelming disparity that I just don't believe an entire world's population would stand for.
The book definitely got more interesting when they were being trained by people other than Faraday. Faraday's method may not have been as brutal or unfair as Goddard's, but it still made no sense. Killing people because they fit the profile of people that might have died in the past makes no sense. It's not some virtue to avoid certain actions when they no longer cause harm to yourself or anyone else. The reason those things need to be avoided is because people prioritize their own ease or entertainment over the safety of others, which is wrong.
I really liked the scene where Rowan took on Goddard and his crew. It was a brutal scene, but very well-written. I also liked when Citra was traveling in South America and how the politics among scythedoms played out.
That said, I did find the last couple of chapters exciting and adventurous. Even if I didn't totally buy the premise of the surrounding society, I had an easier time accepting it when they were just dealing with the politics among the Scythes.
As others have said, the romance was really forced and made no sense. It felt like it was just added because that's what you put in a YA book.
It's funny the the "cloud evolved to the Thunderhead" when the Thunderhead is supposed to be AI which isn't really what cloud typically refers too. I really hated the cloud-based imagery surrounding the AI for that reason.
They established that people are dying at much lower rates from the scythes than they were from issues in mortal ages, but Faraday establishes that he tries to kill people from various demographics at similar rates to what their actual fatality rate would have been in the past, which makes no sense. Further, they also established that people are still having a lot of children, so I don't see how this solves the supposed population overgrowth problem. Only one person talks about it having anything to do with "stagnation," so this does not seem to be the main motivation. The population growth is explained away by "the Thunderhead takes care of it" but if they're really killing that few of people each year, it should practically be a rounding error in managing them.
Further, it does not make sense for public sentiment to turn away from space research if they are really out of space. First of all, there will always be adventurers willing to risk their lives for missions like that. Second, even if there weren't wouldn't people prefer to be given a shot at working on a space mission and possibly dying a catastrophic failure than just being killed by a scythe? You would need engineers to work on the missions, but I would think they would at least make an attempt with randomly selected passengers if they were really so intent on getting rid of people. Overall, the premise of this book was just something I couldn't accept - I think the scythes would have needed some sort of more extreme power or overwhelming numbers to prevent the population from rising up against them. When we were only dealing with scythes or scythe politics, it was easier to accept because there wasn't this overwhelming disparity that I just don't believe an entire world's population would stand for.
The book definitely got more interesting when they were being trained by people other than Faraday. Faraday's method may not have been as brutal or unfair as Goddard's, but it still made no sense. Killing people because they fit the profile of people that might have died in the past makes no sense. It's not some virtue to avoid certain actions when they no longer cause harm to yourself or anyone else. The reason those things need to be avoided is because people prioritize their own ease or entertainment over the safety of others, which is wrong.
I really liked the scene where Rowan took on Goddard and his crew. It was a brutal scene, but very well-written. I also liked when Citra was traveling in South America and how the politics among scythedoms played out.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence and Murder
luxxltyd's review
adventurous
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Death, Murder, Blood, and Violence
Moderate: Suicide, Fire/Fire injury, and Child death