Scythe is a young adult (YA) novel written by Neal Shusterman and published by Simon & Schuster.

Basic Plot

More or less, young people are selected to become "Scythes," people charged with the responsibility to decide who to kill in an immortal society. This is necessary as a job role since people are still breeding and child rearing even though everyone is immortal.

Once someone becomes a Scythe, that is the job they perform for life.

Here is the offical description from the back cover.

The character development for the two main young characters (Rowan and Citra) is done well and fits the world setting. Their growth into becoming deadly assassins is believable and it is very well done to see them take their divergent paths.

Plot Problems

This is a long read, and it is not explained why people in high school are chosen for such an important role. These kids are literally being trained to be master assassins and choose who to kill in an age of immortality. Why would they pick such young people over people in their hundreds with a great deal more wisdom and life experience? I feel like even a sentence or more stating “people under 20 can’t hide their true morality” or something would have explained it.

I don’t dislike the concept of kids having these abilities for this crafted world; I just wish there was some sort of explanation behind it. And if there was an explanation I clearly didn’t get it, so that part needed to be emphasized better.

Final Thoughts

All in all, it was a fun read clearly aimed at younger readers. It is a shame it was not explained better why people under 25 years of age are given such responsibility. If an explanation was presented, it would have made the story overall more robust. It would have also made the read more engaging for readers outside of the YA demographic. Since the story is so good, I am not sure it was a good idea to lock this story into just appealing to young adults.

It was a good read, but I will likely only pick up the other books in this series on a whim.