"Scythe" by Neal Shusterman | Book Review

"Scythe" by Neal Shusterman is the first in a series about a dystopian society that has become almost entirely perfect, relegating all control to a technological being called the Thunderhead—a sort of evolution of the cloud that we all have now online. The only thing not under the Thunderhead's control? Scythes—the one thing decided upon society to help keep population under control, as people are now immortal. Scythes have quotas of kills that they must make each term, and they must choose their kills for good reason: based on old statistics of how people died. But as with all power so massive, corruption comes hand in hand.

This novel follows the two main characters, Rowan Damisch and Citra Terranova, as they are chosen to be apprentices of a wise Scythe. The novel follows them through their studies of Scythedom and the moral dilemmas that follow being trained to kill.

Full of banter, cold killing, political maneuvering, and twists, "Scythe" is a mostly successful dystopian novel.

In my opinion, other than the world that they are in, characters are the most important thing in a fantasy or science fiction novel. A lot of people can dream up a world with new gadgets or magic or different political controls as ours, but for the most part, a reader won't care about that if the people in it aren't interesting and close enough to themselves that at some point they can see themselves in the novel.

Thus, in this world of the Scythes—delicately crafted to be so similar to our world and so realistically in the future for us that you can't help but wonder if this is how we'll turn out—I was mostly interested to see how Shusterman would place his characters inside it. For the most part, I was satisfied.

Many of the Scythes were reasoned and knowledgeable, old souls who had seen a lot and had access to whatever knowledge they wanted, with the exception of a few wildfire scythes providing part of the conflict of the book. This was as expected, however done in a way that didn't feel pretentious or annoying, and still managed to surprise me every now and then.

In terms of character, my gripes came with the main ones: both Citra and Rowan annoyed me. They felt inconsistent, crafted from stereotypes and then deviating from them only when it was convenient to the plot, or when you hated them so much you would put the book down without a break.

I found both of them to have a problem with everyone and always be hot on their feet. Now, most teenagers are in fact like that (me, in particular) but for main characters, it made their internal dialogue annoying to read, particularly toward the end.

Beyond that, the world was intricate and intriguing, and there was a good twist in the plot halfway through the book that I truly did not expect.

However, in terms of depth and intrigue of the plot, I had a few more issues. I predicted the ending immediately after the halfway point of the novel, and I found myself a little bit disappointed that as I read, it happened exactly as I expected.

That final scene between Rowan and Citra where they must face off didn't shock me one bit, and I was surprised that no one—not a single member of the Scythedom who have all been alive for years—could predict what Citra was going to do. It felt like a cop out, or a let down.

For most of this book, Shusterman steers the story deftly and deeply, even if the vessels weren't my favorite to tell the story, but the ending really left me feeling disappointed.

"Scythe" still said a lot about our world and had me thinking about technological advances and where that could go, and in that way, the novel stayed with me even when I wasn't reading which is always a good sign. But the plot just didn't do it for me here, leaving me conflicted on how I feel about the book as a whole.

Does that mean I won't read the rest of the series? No, not necessarily. There was enough redeemable and even formidable about this novel that I would be interested in continuing the series, however it's not exactly at the top of my TBR list.

Plot: 70%

Depth: 90%

Intrigue: 85%

Style: 80%

Characters: 80%

Overall: B-

Tana French is the Epitome of Crime Writing | "The Trespasser" Review

Before I start, I have to admit, I technically read this series out of order. I read the sixth of the series without reading any of the before. As far as I can tell, it is the type of series that you don't need to read in order, but if the characters and location are continuous, then I might be missing brief character history.

I just finished "The Trespasser" by Tana French, and my overall opinion is that it is excellent. The novel is dense, real, clever, and the near-perfect slow burn crime novel.

We follow our main character: Detective Antoinette Conway as she struggles through the tangled web of being a new (and sexistly picked on) member of the Murder Squad. It was always her dream to be on it, but since she was she got the bottom-of-the-barrel, low feeder cases that failed to stimulate her. In this novel, she's reaching her breaking point with all of the rude comments, the jokes, and the lack of respect.

All of that changes when her and her partner Stephen Moran get assigned the case of Aislinn Murray—what appears to be just another run of the mill domestic violence case with just a little bit more tied up in it.

This story begins with the preliminaries of any case, introducing us to witty dialogue and description with the precision of a knife that laid the groundworks for our characters and for the Murder Squad which we would spend the rest of the novel detangling, and this is the very first time that I was struck by the brilliance of Tana French.

Tana French is detail royalty. Each detail, down to the kind of breakfasts they ate, their specific word choices, their thoughts, their homes, and even their phones are perfect for the characters. There isn't a lot of this novel where you can't perfectly envision the slightly neurotic, tenacious, and worn down Detective Conway, or the nice guy Detective Moran. "The Trespasser" was one of the few novels I've read as of late where I could practically hear every line of dialogue.

That is part of what contributes to the genius of this book. Any book is character-based, but one about murder and its suspects, as well as the detectives behind it, is particularly rooted in characters who move the story along, and the perfection Tana French created here was mind-blowing.

As the plot progresses, a bit slowly at first as our detectives struggle with their allegiances and various possible leads, there are theories that tangle members of the Murder Squad into the crime. Conway and Moran suspected Breslin to be involved with a gang and that gang to be responsible for Aislinn's death, which was another brilliant touch by French upon the ending of the book.

In terms of plot, I think this book's plot could have been more complicated, for there was a lot of it that I predicted, but it still doesn't stop the thrilling feeling I got reading it while French took her main detectives on wild limbs and chasing theories that were so close to the truth you began to believe it too.

And, of course, it being a crime novel, there were multiple long scenes of interrogations that I simply couldn't get enough of. As she's so good at dialogue, these scenes where the cops settle into their roles and learn things about both the suspects, but one another as well, were some of the finest of the book, and ultimately were vessels to reveal main plot points—something a bit unconventional seeing as the plot points didn't have anything to do with the suspects and everything to do with the detectives.

With the history of crime writing general, I also have to say that reading a female main character written realistically was just ridiculously refreshing. Men dominated this genre for years and always seemed unable to write deep, multi-dimensional female characters. Tana French is the epitome of crime writing, and she brings with it many things that I was tired of not seeing before. For that, I'm incredibly grateful.

To put it firmly: This will not be the last book of Tana French's that I'm reading. Crime writing is a difficult thing to tackle, but Tana French is an expert.

Characters: 100%
Plot: 85%
Depth: 90%
Style: 95%
Intrigue: 90%
Overall Rating: A