Great Reads for Great Readers

 

Scythe, by Neal Shusterman.                  Young Adults.

 

     

       This is not a recent publication, but it is the first book of a trilogy that I absolutely HAVE to finish.  Dystopian fiction, especially for Young Adults, is now a popular genre, especially with the advent of ‘The Hunger Games’ and it is a fitting reflection of the current turmoil and uncertainty that rules our world.  In ‘Scythe’, Neal Shusterman takes us on an all-too-realistic journey into the near future, where mankind has evolved far enough to have eliminated war, disease, hunger and its attendant misery:  no-one dies any more because all the usual ways to die have been eliminated;  instead, on a percentage basis according to Old World statistics, people are visited by a Scythe, a person specifically selected to kill them – whether they want to die or not.  There is no argument.  It shall be done, regardless of the protests and sometimes rebellion from the chosen one’s family:  it is their time.  Whether they agree or not.

            Scythe Faraday has taken on two new apprentices, even though it is usual to train only one at a time, but he is impressed with both of them for differing reasons:  Rowan happened to be nearby when his high-school classmate was ‘called’ into the Principal’s Office.  He was shocked to witness the boy’s death (called Gleaning), even though he tried to intervene it wasn’t ‘his time’.  He was trying to compose something empathetic to tell the boy’s parents when he is horrified to find his parents have been visited by Scythe Faraday:  if they will apprentice Rowan to the Scythe, then they will have immunity from death too – for a year.  Bye, Rowan!

            Citra, a pupil at the same high school, has also been chosen for her fearlessness at standing up to Scythe Faraday when he visited her family’s apartment, requesting dinner as he waited for their neighbour to come home.  (Scythes customarily eat wherever and whenever they like, for free.  Who would be brave enough to charge them?)  She had so many scathing things to say to him that he admired her courage.  Now, look where that has got her!  And one thing that unites Rowan and Citra irrevocably:  neither of them want to kill anyone, much less learn the myriad ways of death that Scythe Faraday wants to teach them.  It’s great that they have earned immunity for their families (for one year), but at what cost to themselves?

            Neal Shusterman has constructed a chillingly real future world, cleverly combining the former glories of Old World History with a frightening shift in the moral compass of the New.  Let’s hope he’ll never be right!  FIVE STARS.