Scan barcode
A review by ladybugwrites
Scythe by Neal Shusterman
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
This book is much the same as a lot of other young adult books. It's cliche, it's predictable, and it has an interesting concept and premise that keeps you engaged throughout the whole book. There's many good things about this one and I did enjoy it, especially the kind of nuanced conversation about murder (which was very spoonfed in a way), but I have small gripes with this book.
One, there's a few sentence structures that I do not think work. They take away from the flow and these are repeated. It feels like sentences structures just to not use a pronoun two sentences in a row, really. And there are other places where the writing is just slightly off, but for the most part, the writing is good.
Two, the romance does not work. There was not enough build up to try and make a romance, and yet it is so forced in there. You can not want to kill someone (this is not a spoiler it says so on the back of the book) without being in love with them or having romantic feelings for them.
Three, take a look into how to do POV writings. I accept an overlap in classics because they usually have a differenet structure and a very clear narrator where it makes sense, but in a YA book like this, I do not want to ask myself which POV I'm currently reading, or have it be one and then the other in the next paragraph (this is actually one of the things that has me DNF fanfiction and the only reason I didn't DNF this book bc of it is because it wasn't that bad and tolerable and at some point, there has to be clear lines between the POV).
Four, the characters. They seems great, I like them to an extent, but I have a hard time understanding some of the choices they make. I have a really hard time with how fucking stupid they are and it got on my nerves.
Honestly, as I said, this is a pretty typical YA novel. It was very predictable honestly to the extent that I'm not sure I needed to finish the book to know what the end was, but it was still an enjoyable, easy read and I might, despite the four gripes above, still pick up the next one just because I kinda wanna know what happens next (also I did find the premise and concept of this dystopic world to be very interesting and fascinating and I do, somewhat, want to explore more of it).
One, there's a few sentence structures that I do not think work. They take away from the flow and these are repeated. It feels like sentences structures just to not use a pronoun two sentences in a row, really. And there are other places where the writing is just slightly off, but for the most part, the writing is good.
Two, the romance does not work. There was not enough build up to try and make a romance, and yet it is so forced in there. You can not want to kill someone (this is not a spoiler it says so on the back of the book) without being in love with them or having romantic feelings for them.
Three, take a look into how to do POV writings. I accept an overlap in classics because they usually have a differenet structure and a very clear narrator where it makes sense, but in a YA book like this, I do not want to ask myself which POV I'm currently reading, or have it be one and then the other in the next paragraph (this is actually one of the things that has me DNF fanfiction and the only reason I didn't DNF this book bc of it is because it wasn't that bad and tolerable and at some point, there has to be clear lines between the POV).
Four, the characters. They seems great, I like them to an extent, but I have a hard time understanding some of the choices they make. I have a really hard time with how fucking stupid they are and it got on my nerves.
Honestly, as I said, this is a pretty typical YA novel. It was very predictable honestly to the extent that I'm not sure I needed to finish the book to know what the end was, but it was still an enjoyable, easy read and I might, despite the four gripes above, still pick up the next one just because I kinda wanna know what happens next (also I did find the premise and concept of this dystopic world to be very interesting and fascinating and I do, somewhat, want to explore more of it).