Dry by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman

Cover Art Courtesy of Goodreads

So the irony with this book was that it arrived in a hurricane. This book about no water was physically soaked through by a tremendous rain storm. After several rounds with a blow dryer and placing it under a pile of heavy stuff to flatten out for a few months, I was finally able to get to Dry, a YA dystopian by Neal and Jarrod Shusterman!

In Dry, water has become a scarcity, and panic ensues when people realize that it is no longer readily available. Riots break out, and friends and families turn on each other as days go by. When Alyssa's parents set off to try to find water and don't return, Alyssa has to take control of the situation to ensure that she and her little brother survive.

Unfortunately I did not love this one. I think the Scythe series wrecked it for me, since that series was so good and I didn't think this one matched it in quality. Page after page I found myself cringing at the decisions these kids made. Many plot points in this book did not seem plausible to me at all, and overall it was more annoying than entertaining. I was pretty happy to be finished when it was over. 

I do think the concept was really good, and definitely something we could see happen in our lifetime. I also thought this was an interesting discourse on human nature, our survival instincts, and how we as a society handle disaster. But that wasn't enough to save the rating from the poor characters and plot line.

Also, this book made me hella thirsty.

Overall Rating: 2 out of 5 Stars

Thanks so much to Simon & Schuster for sending me a copy of Dry by Neal and Jarrod Shusterman! This YA dystopian is out now!

Scythe by Neal Shusterman

This book has been on my radar for quite some time. The concept fascinated me: in a world where there is no more natural death, chosen individuals must basically act as grim reapers to ensure population control. Somehow, it took me this long to read it (even though it was released over a year ago), but I'm so glad I did!

Scythe by Neal Shusterman follows two teens, Citra and Rowan, as they are taken on as apprentices to a well-known Scythe. Scythes are tasked with killing (or gleaning) people now that natural death is extinct. They are immune to gleaning unless they choose to perform the act on themselves, and are bestowed many other privileges, inducing free groceries and exemption from standard laws, but most importantly the ability to grant a year-long immunity to anyone they choose. After a terrible event takes place, Citra and Rowan are split up in their apprenticeship, one being taken on by The Grand Dame of Death and the other by someone who very well may be a murderer in every sense that murder can exist in this world. And to make it worse, only one can be ordained as a Scythe, and he or she must kill the other.

This book was phenomenal, and may very well be one of my favorite reads of 2017. Even though it is fairly long (over 400 pages), I read it in less than 24 hours. It was very easy to follow and understand. The characters, especially Scythe Faraday and Scythe Curie, were well developed and very easy to like. It was a little gory, but not terribly so. The whole time I was thinking to myself what name I would take if I were a Scythe (they all must be after someone who made a great impact on history, such as Marie Curie and Nelson Mandela), and which color my robes would be. One thing that really interested me was the concept of the Thunderhead, an all knowing cloud of information that governs the world. It reminds me of the Glow Cloud if anyone listens to the Welcome to Night Vale podcast!

I'm not sure how many books there will be in this series, but at least one more is coming out, and soon. Thunderhead releases on January 9th and I am preordering it as soon as I finish this blog post! I can't wait to jump right back into this world and see what happens next.

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars