Update 5/2020: rating upped to 4*

3.5 Stars

This book was a wonderful start to a series with a very interesting concept. The descriptions of the world is amazing, and reminded me a lot of The Giver in terms of the descriptions of the past. I went into the book expecting the Scythes to have a supernatural approach to taking life in a world where there is no death, but it's not like that at all, which perhaps made it even more interesting. I think this book is a great read and I can't wait to read the next book when it comes out.

So why the lower rating then? Because there were some things in this book that I think just didn't belong. Things that didn't mesh well with how the narrative was set up, how the pacing was organized, or how the author's writing style came through.

The first and most glaring issue I had was the shoehorned romance between the two main characters. No, the relationship between them never does blossom into a full blown romance, but the descriptions involved stated that the two characters had romantic feelings for each other that weren't properly developed. Ever. We don't see every moment these two spend together, just glimpses between time skips that span weeks and months. This sets up a great way to describe the life of Scythes and the regular citizens in this world but does not do well to establish a believable relationship between Citra and Rowan. The romantic/lustful thoughts we get to see from them comes off as the author thinking "oh, a boy and girl living together? They COULDN'T just be FRIENDS." Which is annoying at best and harmful at worst. It's fairly easy to ignore and plow through to the actual good parts of the book, but it's no less annoying and many eye rolls were had.

The other, much smaller, complaint I have is simply that any scenes involving combat weren't as eloquently written as they could have been, but perhaps it's just not Neal Shusterman's strongest point. That's fine, but it did make the scenes involving a lot of action or combat drag on just a tad.

That said, I did really enjoy reading this. I will be picking up the next book, and perhaps looking at Shusterman's other works as well.