2048 brought a breakthrough in technology. Computing power became inexhaustible and AI started managing the world, eliminating sickness, starvation, and death. Mankind had nothing to fear except the Scythes. The Scythes were formed by mankind to keep the population stable by killing almost anyone, their choice limited by only 10 laws. Citra and Rowan hate Scythes. Then they are chosen to be one,
The setting of this book really captured my attention. It made me struggle through the question of whether you should preserve an utopia by random killings, or instead let the utopia be destroyed by starvation. It's a tough question and one that the people in Scythe don't seem to fully appreciate. They've chosen the scythes and given them power, but still live in fear of that power.
The majority of the supporting characters were very well written. Their motives and characters made sense and felt very realistic. The journal entries written by different ones were my favorite parts of the book.
What ruined the book for me was the two main characters. Scythe Faraday chose Citra and Rowan because they hated the Scythes, but they seem to resign themselves to killing in a very short amount of time. Citra has almost no character progression in the books, and while Rowan does change, he seems all to reluctant to change. I felt like Scythe Volta would have made a much better Rowan. The romance between Citra and Rowan and the fact that they both wanted the other to kill them instead of having to kill the other sealed the coffin for me.
Another thing that I hated was that the first plot twist was much too noticeable. As soon as I read the set up, I knew that either there was a plot twist (and I knew what it was) or that the author was very sloppy. Plot twists are supposed to take advantage of what the reader missed, not what everyone in the book missed. The final plot twist wasn't as bad, but could have been much better by ignoring the reader's feelings (i.e. kill imprison those main characters!).
Overall, Scythe was an ok book. While the main characters were rather weak, they didn't completely ruin the book. The thoughts behind the book were really the highlight of Scythe. I'll probably pick up the second book in the series to see if it's any better (fingers crossed) and will write a review on it when I finish.
If only authors would write YA fiction at the same quality as Adult fiction.