Reviews with content warning for Abandonment - Scythe

4’5⭐️

<i>Los mandamientos de los segadores:

1. Matarás.
2. Matarás sin prejuicios, sesgos ni premeditación.
3. Concederás un año de inmunidad a los seres queridos de aquellos que acepten tu llegada y a todo aquel que consideres digno de ello.
4. Matarás a los seres queridos de aquellos que se resistan.
5. Servirás a la humanidad durante el resto de tus días y tu familia recibirá la inmunidad como recompensa durante toda tu vida.
6. Llevarás una vida ejemplar, tanto de palabra como de obra, y escribirás un diario en el que dejarás constancia de lo acontecido cada día.
7. No matarás a ningún segador, salvo a ti mismo.
8. No tendrás más posesiones terrenales que tu túnica, tu anillo y tu diario.
9. No tomarás cónyuge ni engendrarás.
10. No acatarás más leyes que estas.</i>

Este libro me ha gustado bastante. Aunque se publicó hace un tiempo y todo el mundo lo ha leído, yo siempre llego tarde y decidí leerlo antes de acabar el mes de mayo.
La verdad es que sabía que era una distopía pero no me esperaba para nada que fuera así. Todo el tema del Nimbo tampoco me ha parecido una locura considerando los tiempos que vivimos de que la tecnología está completamente transformando el mundo cada día más y más, y no me sorprendería para nada que llegase a pasar lo ocurrido en el libro. Entendiendo el punto de los segadores e incluso puedo llegar a comprender su oficio y lo necesario que es. En esta “utopía” gobernada por el Nimbo aparecen, cómo no, problemas que ellos mismos van a tener que enfrentar: no sólo en cuanto a cribar, sino también entre los segadores.

El libro empieza con una de las protagonistas, Citra, recibiendo al que más tarde sería su mentor, el segador Faraday, en su casa. Después conocemos a Rowan, el otro protagonista, que conoce a Faraday después de que un compañero suyo de clase sea elegido para la criba y decida quedarse con él durante el proceso, haciéndose así el segundo novicio elegido por Faraday. Ambos protagonistas me han encantado, son los dos bastante diferentes el uno del otro: Citra es una chica decidida, fuerte, capaz de cualquier cosa, y nunca se rinde; Rowan es apodado “el lechuga” porque como él dice, siempre es al que menos le hacen caso la gente, el que no importa, el que sobra, pero su evolución como personaje es una brutalidad y la verdad es que le amo. Aunque sea bastante leve, el autor introduce un pequeño romance (o afecto sería mejor) entre ambos y tengo bastante ganas de leer los siguientes para ver cómo evoluciona. Hay otros personajes (aunque aparecen nombrados los familiares de cada uno, no salen lo suficiente para poder dar una opinión concreta de cada uno), básicamente otros segadores, que tienen una ética moral bastante diferente de cada uno y está muy bien reflejado cómo impactan sus actos en el libro.

La verdad es que me ha encantado y la idea del libro me parece bestial, pero sí que es verdad que no deja de ser una introducción a todo el mundo de esta trilogía, y se nota que el segundo libro viene fuerte porque el final te deja con muchísimas ganas de seguir leyendo sin parar. En algunas ocasiones se me ha hecho un poco lento, pero es comprensible teniendo en cuenta que este tomo es básicamente cómo aprenden los protagonistas el arte de ser segador/de cribar. Le doy un 4,5 porque sé que el segundo libro me va a encantar y en este hay cosas que no me han acabado de convencer (aunque sean poquísimas, como ya he dicho).

Content Warnings

neverlandpages4's review

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

• I’ve had my eye on this book for over a year, and I finally picked it up recently after having multiple people recommend it to me and I’m so glad that I did!

• This was the first Sci-fi book I’ve read and I loved the entire world and the system that it operates in. There are a lot of little things that make this world so unique.

𝐖𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠
• I absolutely loved Neal Shusterman’s writing. It was really thought provoking, interesting, and witty. There’s quite a bit of dark humor too.

𝐏𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠
• The pacing I did struggle with at first. There were so many huge time jumps and I usually don’t like that in books or movies. It feels like I’m missing out on so many things and it definitely made the character development a little weird because in the span of a chapter, they’re a completely different person. I saw some people say that this was slow-paced, but in my opinion, it was too fast-paced for my liking.

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬
• Honestly, I didn’t like either of the main characters at first. It was interesting seeing the dichotomy between them but I didn’t feel attached to them. Citra definitely grew on me and I loved her character development. By the end of the book, I was absolutely rooting for her and I loved how determined and strong she was. But with Rowan, I liked him less and less as the book went on.

𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐛𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐭
• Even though I agree with most people that Citra and Rowan are adorable, the romance between them seemed unrealistic. They don’t spend much time together on the page, we follow their journeys separately, so it was weird seeing them all of the sudden in love at the end.

𝐄𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠
• I was really curious to see how this would end because the characters are put in an impossible situation, and I really liked how it ended. It was kind of funny how a serious situation was solved by something like that, but I liked it because it was unexpected, and I can’t wait to continue this series!!

Side note:
Although this is categorized as Young Adult, there’s a lot of violence (which is obvious from the synopsis) and there’s specifically the topic of a school sh—ting that made me extremely upset, so even though I loved this book, I definitely didn’t love reading about those things and it kind of put me in this gloomy mood so I’d suggest checking the content warnings and making sure you’re not reading this if you’re in a bad place mentally or if you’re just someone that doesn’t like reading about these topics

Content Warnings

lmgst30's review

Go to review page

emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated

5.0

So many twists! Up until nearly the last page. I didn't think the author would be able to create a satisfying ending, but they did.

Content Warnings

recycled_personalities's review

Go to review page

dark funny reflective sad fast-paced

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

3.25

cool world, and like 2 decent characters. i think the societal structure is enough for me to recommend this book as i believe it is quite the ponder one can have.

Content Warnings

nicnevin's review

Go to review page

dark reflective tense fast-paced

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

3.5

Picked this up because death is sexy.

This has challenged me greatly because I don't really know what to say. There are parts I like and some I don't. I couldn't care less about the romance and yet it is stitched together as vital to the plot. The world building is interesting but kinda vague and I want to discuss that a lot but I don't think this is the right place. It places a weird emphasis on race, like everyone really cares about their 23&Me results.

I guess I want to read the rest, mostly to try and pin down what the point the author is trying to make. It is both too obvious and too obscured. There are screeds about how life was better when death was a thing, actually even though death... Still is a thing?

Idk I need to parse this on my brain.

Content Warnings

bill369's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous funny hopeful mysterious 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

4.25

I got to this book because I've grown to like the author's writing. He writes the ideal escape the world books for me and I like this one too. It has a good thought, it's easy to read and not too sad. I like sad books, but from time to time I need a break and this was the break.

My favourite character is Scythe Curie. I like her because she's wise, empathic, self-disciplined and overall quite likeable. I feel like the author wants the reader to like her because from the start the reader sees excerpts that make the reader wonder who she is and the further the reader gets, the more she's pictured in the good light. And I wouldn't be against that, don't get me wrong, but perhaps I'm missing something negative about her because when I truly think about her I can't picture her as a whole. There's this piece missing to understand her. Maybe that's what the author wanted, but I find it rather annoying. I hope I will get to know her more in the next book.

Cool dystopian world book. I love these, therefore I obviously like the theme of the book. I like how many thoughts are represented here. The most interesting of all is the thought of stagnation which made me think a little more and I have come to the conclusion that I wouldn't want to be immortal, even though I don't want to die yet. And that's so because my limited time keeps me motivated and focused on my goals because I know I got only one shot and I don't have forever.

My favourite lines are on page 367. They are my favourite because it is a nice and emotional moment between my two favourite characters in the book. It's just really nice. I love how Scythe Curie is finally more open to Citra and honestly who doesn't like this moment? “I don’t know. All I know is that if you lose today, Citra, I will never
forgive myself.”
It was absurd to think that the great Scythe Marie Curie, Grande Dame of
Death, would care so much for her—and would even think there could be
any failure on her own part. “I’ve had the benefit of being trained by the two
greatest scythes who ever lived—you and Scythe Faraday. If that hasn’t
prepared me for today, nothing could have.”
Scythe Curie beamed with bittersweet pride. “When this is over and you
are ordained, I hope you’ll do me the esteemed honor of staying on with me
as a junior scythe. Others will make advances—perhaps even from distant
regions. They’ll try to tell you there are things you can learn from them that
you couldn’t learn from me. Perhaps that’s true, but I do hope you’ll choose
to remain anyway.” Her eyes were on the brink of tears. If she blinked, they
would fall—but Scythe Curie kept them pooled on her lower lashes, too
proud to be seen weeping in conclave.

The ending turned out really well. I thought I would cry, because one of the main characters would die, but in the end Citra was smart and solved the situation well.
It had quite an open ending, but I'm fine with it, because it is a book series after all. I like the ending.

This book isn't a 5 star, it was great, but for a 5 star, I would have to cry and care deeply about it. It was fun and well written, but it's not a 5 star for me. As I said perhaps I would make the characters a bit shadier, but otherwise, I don't know what I would change. Also, I do want to point out, that characters do have some past, but it's not very dark or anything. If it was up to me, I think I would add more to their backstory. But as I said before I like this book, it was a good, fun and quite relaxing read. It's not a must-read, but if someone wants to and is looking for a more easy fast-paced book, then they'll be content.

Content Warnings

madsforbooks's review

Go to review page

5.0

Content Warnings

More...