67th book of 2019.
Scythe – an interesting, somewhat meditative YA scifi novel on death. The premise was fun, and I appreciate how the author went to pains to tell a utopian story. In some ways it’s a trick on us, being able to find enough misery in such a utopia to fill the pages of a novel.
But I digress. The characters were ok but nothing special. The plot moved along though I felt like the author tipped off upcoming twists a bit too clearly, such that none of them ended up a surprise. Maybe that means I’ve just been reading too much Scifi.
Perhaps my biggest gripe is that I kept wondering about the second order questions that would have made this book more interesting: I was wishing for a more detailed character development from the horror of gleaning, to sadness, to annoyance, to routine. I wondered how immortals would react to the one thing that could bring death (I’m a bit surprised we didn’t see everybody just run for it whenever they saw a scythe), or the inevitable factionalism that seems to have formed for the first time with Goddard and his crew.
I’ll read the rest of the series.