Scythe by Neal Shusterman
This was a very interesting concept, but such a slow start. Like, I kept taking breaks it was so slow. I know with fantasy (and this is a bit sci-fi as well, but the sentiment still applies) you have to let the world build; but it was a very slow build. Basically, in this world nobody dies permanently unless a Scythe (aka a Grim Reaper) gleans you. And accident, you are taken to a hospital and revived. Enter Honorable Scythe Faraday. He takes on two apprentices, Citra and Rowan, for different reasons. He ends up having dinner with Citra and her family and Citra is unhappy at best; she does not grovel, she does not dote, she is almost hostile thinking that he is prolonging the agony of who in her family he is there to kill. Turns out, he was there for her neighbor who was not home yet. Her revulsion and straightforward manner are necessary to being a good Scythe. Then there is Rowan. Faraday shows up at his school at the same time as Rowan and asks him for directions to the office. While Rowan is getting his tardy pass Faraday is having the office call down the student he is about to glean, the star quarterback. Rowan barges in and tries to intervene on his behalf, then he offers to stay with him, to give him some comfort. His compassion is necessary to being a good Scythe. Both Citra and Rowan accept the apprentice positions. They both fail the first test, trying to help the other. Then, we have Scythe Goddard; he prefers mass gleanings. He does not like Faraday and wants only one of the apprentices to succeed and proposes that the only one pass and then has to glean the other. Faraday ends up self-gleaning to release them from their apprenticeship, but Goddard offers to take on both so the challenge can continue. Enter Honorable Scythe Curie, the Grande Dame of Death. She takes Citra and Goddard gets Rowan. They are trained in two different styles and the contest continues. Then, Citra starts looking into Faraday's death. She gets accused of orchestrating it and is on trial, so she throws herself off a building to get away. Then she is on the run. She ends up, with Curie's help, at the house of a man named Gerald. It's Faraday. He faked his own death. He trains her for months while Curie clears her name. Meanwhile, Rowan is still with Goddard. It's right before the final trial. Goddard takes his junior Scythes and Rowan to a cult to do a mass gleaning. Rowan finds the nice one crying after having killed a bunch of kids, she then kills herself. Goddard told Rowan that he would be doing his first gleaning today. And Rowan does, just not in the way Goddard expects. Rowan kills Goddard and the other two junior scythes then sets the building on fire. Dresses up as Goddard to keep the fire department out. And makes sure everything burns so much that all of the bodies are unrecognizable. He just eliminated the leaders of the kill for the fun of it part of the scythedom. The final trial arrives. We only get to see Citra's trial. She has to glean her brother, Ben. There are multiple weapons on the table in front of her, she has to pull a slip of paper from a bowl and use the weapon she randomly selected. She picks knife. She talks her brother through it and gives him a quick, clean death before he is removed to be revived. The next day only one ring is present. Citra is selected. She punches Rowan in the face, getting his blood on her ring, granting him immunity, so she can't glean him. In the uproar she tells him to take some knives and that there's a car waiting for him. He flees, fighting his way out and Faraday is waiting for him. That's where the book ends. It was a slow start, but once the world was established it was very interesting. I will definitely be continuing with book two!
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