Reviews – What in the Words?

The expression don’t judge a book by its cover has never applied to me. I’ll be the first to admit that I walk into a bookstore and peruse through the shelves of fantasy and YA fantasy, waiting for something to jump out and grab my attention.

Sometimes it’s a cover, or sometimes it’s a title. With Scythe by Neal Shusterman, it was both.

How stunning is the cover? Not only that, but the title is short and punchy and immediately gripping.

So I turned over the book to read the blurb and was immediately hooked.

Fantasy is my normal genre. I love magic and dragons and made up places. The Arc of Scythe is a little different to the kind of thing I usually read.

Set in the future, though no one can remember how many years exactly it has been since the Age of Mortality, as they call it, Scythe has no magic in it. Instead, humanity has advanced so far in technology they were able to create an AI that could finally take control of the things that we are not necessarily good at and make the world a perfect place. There is no more hunger, no more poverty, and perhaps most interestingly at all, no more death.

What would happen in a society with no more death? Or rather, when being dead was just a temporary state where you were revived within days? Well, rebellious teenagers would start to Splat off buildings for fun and the adrenaline rush. Jobs would become somewhat unnecessary, leading to a lot of people doing make-work.

And, to avoid humanity getting completely out of hand, there would still be a need for people to die.

Citra and Rowan are chosen to apprentice to that very profession – not killing, but gleaning. The Scythes are the only people who are able to permanently end a life.

So begins a compelling story of morality, death and fear. Shusterman drew me into the fantastical world from the first chapter and I didn’t want to put the book down.

Part of what I loved about this story was that I couldn’t decide if I saw the world as utopian or dystopian. To me, it was a blend of the two that I couldn’t seperate. Sure, things seemed perfect. Until you or your loved one was chosen to be gleaned and your world collapsed.

I didn’t expect to adore this story as much as I did. Between finishing Scythe and writing this, I have already devoured the second book in the trilogy and started the third, and just today I picked up the first book in another series by Shusterman.

According to Junior Editor Ellie, this was a very tasty book! I would have to agree with her. Though some ratings say from ages 12+ I would put it more in the 15+ range because of the prevalence of death and philosophy, but it’s definitely a book I would pick up and read again.

Have you read Scythe? What questions about our current way of life did it raise for you? Did you see it as utopian or dystopian? I’d love to know!

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You know you like a book when you have not one, but two autographed editions.

Ask anyone who knows me, and they’ll tell you I’m a sucker for autographed books. In this instance, I walked into my local Dymocks to browse around their fantasy sections.

And there, sitting on the end of the shelf, practically beckoning for me to pick it up, was Akarnae.

I knew nothing about this book. Nor had I ever heard of the author, Lynette Noni. But that little ‘Autographed Edition’ sticker sold me. I picked up the first and third books in the series, because those were the two they had autographed, paid, and left.

I didn’t read them right away. I have this condition called book-aholicism, where I buy hundreds of books to read and then put them on my shelf to gather dust. I think I picked up Akarnae over a month later to finally read it.

When I did I couldn’t put it down.

I posted on Instagram that night; A picture of the book from the side. I was already up to chapter seventeen and had no intention of stopping. The next day I bought book two in the series and proceeded to binge read all three of them.

Noni introduces our main character, Alexandra Jennings, as a strong and stubborn young woman whose parents love her dearly but are caught up in their admittedly fascinating work. When Alex arrives at a new boarding school, she’s quickly thrown into a Strange New World.

In this new world, we meet mysterious Aven, followed quickly by sweet, smart Bear and troublemaker Jordan. Bear, Jordan and Alex are thrown into an adventure the likes of which they never imagined as Alex tries to figure out how to get herself home.

The characters in this series captivated me from the first moment of reading them. They felt real, and I was pulled along through their struggles and their triumphs during their school year.

I also adored the world. Medora is so like our world in so many ways, yet we would have to advance scientifically and gain magical abilities for it to be truly comparable. There was just enough realism in it that often while I was reading Akarnae, I forgot that I was in fact in a book and not experiencing something.

Yes, I would recommend this book. It would be a great read for anyone who loves YA fantasy, or for anyone who likes books about academies, schools, or universities. It gets a little dark later in the series, so I wouldn’t recommend this book for younger readers.

And as for that second copy: well, how could I walk past that stunning special edition and not pick it up?

Have you read Akarnae? What about any of the other books in the series? What did you like about them? What didn’t you like? Reach out to me in the comments, I’d love to know!

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Category: Reviews

Review: Scythe

Review: Akarnae