Elle

I am 100% convinced that that best way to consume this beautiful, yet disturbing novel is through audio. The book is written in first person, very casually. The main character, Kathy, goes off on tangents or will start talking about an event and then remember she has to tell the reader about a prior event in order to give this current one some context. It's as if your friend is sitting beside you telling you the story of her early years and that's what makes the audiobook so much better than the physical book. It really feels even more like Kathy is talking to you, she's sharing something with you specifically. 

Kathy's reflections on her time at Hailsham and her relationships with other students and the guardians were all very interesting to me and the stories from her early childhood especially felt very realistic and even brought up some memories of my own childhood. As the children grew up at the boarding school, they learned bit by bit what it meant to be a student at Hailsham, but none of them fully understood until after they graduated, and even then some things were still murky. Kathy and her friends knew they were special, and the guardians even told them so, but what it truly meant to be so special was never clearly spelled out during their time at Hailsham. So much of what they really needed to know was hidden within their school lessons. Or in a rumor, a whisper, an overheard conversation. Their lives were puzzles they only got a piece of every once in a while but tried to put together anyway and it was heartbreaking to “witness.”

Whoa, what a book. A teacher seeks revenge after her only reason for living is ripped away. I was absolutely gripped from the start. The first chapter alone could have been an insane short story and I'd have been satisfied, but I'm more than glad it was longer.

Each chapter is written from a different point of view, and sometimes multiple people describe the same series of events, so bits of information are repeated, but in a different way. For some, it might feel repetitive, but I didn't think it was a problem at all. It was interesting to see things from more than one angle.

I'd like to say more about the plot, but I went in blind and I think you should too. It's a perfect revenge thriller. Reminded me of Old Boy. Yeah, it has THAT kind of jaw-dropping revenge. The best kind. 

When I was about a quarter of the way through Scythe, I was telling my boyfriend about it and he said “If the Thunderhead (the AI that knows all and has solved all of humanity’s problems, thus allowing them to live in a utopia) is all-knowing and capable of so much, why can it solve every problem except over-population? It doesn’t make sense.” And that was it. Before he asked the question, I was perfectly willing to accept that Scythes were necessary, but after? I couldn’t make sense of it. Why couldn’t the Thunderhead solve over-population? It solved world hunger. It solved death! I know that without the Scythes, there wouldn’t have been a book, so I moved on (mostly), but I thought about it every once in a while as I read and I do wish there was a better explanation for their existence.

Anyway… I liked the main characters, though I feel Citra didn’t have as much development as Rowan. They both struggled with being Scythe apprentices, but Rowan dealt with a lot more strife and moral dilemmas. I found his sections more interesting and exciting, and going through all of that with him made me like him more. Side characters were interesting as well, and even the “villains” weren’t necessarily villains depending on who you are and what you believe.

I loved the way the Scythes each had their own method of gleaning people. It made for some interesting thought about how I would glean if I was a Scythe. I found it funny that in a utopia without government, they still ended up with the untouchable Scythes, who made their own rules and felt very much like a corrupt government, furthering the idea that corruption is inescapable.

I wasn’t expecting the book to be as twisty as it was, maybe because it had quite the slow start and didn’t get into twists until pretty late in the book, but they were fun and exciting. I love the way it ended, I think it was perfect and it made me really excited for the next book. I expect Thunderhead (the title of the next book) to be more fast-paced because I think Shusterman had to take some time setting up the series and explaining how the world works with Scythe, which slowed it down a bit. We’ll see!

This is it. This is the physical book I want to annotate. I can't, because it's a library book, and I'm honestly kind of devastated.

Anyway, our narrator is incredibly selfish, a horrible friend, and she doesn't care about anyone around her. But she doesn't seem to care about herself either. She's self-destructive and makes no effort to take care of herself in even the simplest of ways. She's not exactly a likeable character, and yet, I found myself liking her. Maybe even loving her. I don't behave the way she does (I promise!) but I somehow understood her. And anyway, her friend Reva did sound kind of annoying.

Though a couple things might not have been 100% believable, the book felt like an incredibly honest memoir, and I enjoyed that aspect a whole lot. I found myself relating to some of the narrator's thoughts and experiences in some abstract, some more concrete ways. She said some things I could have written myself and who knows, maybe that's why I liked her as much as I did.

I love the way My Year of Rest and Relaxation feels like it's about nothing and something at the same time. A young woman sleeps through a year of her life, so, yeah, there's not a lot of action. But sometimes, she wakes up, and in a haze, she goes out for supplies, or to see her irresponsible therapist for prescription refills. She calls her horrible sometimes-boyfriend. Her friend drops by. She reflects on old memories. The between-sleep content provided a surprising amount of substance for a book about a woman who wants a year of nothingness.

I haven't read any other reviews, but I've heard reception was kind of mixed on this book and I understand why, but I'd absolutely recommend it to anyone who doesn't take issue with characters deemed unlikeable.