Neal Shusterman has a remarkable ability to display complex topics in a way pretty much anyone can understand, as I learned while reading his Skinjacker Trilogy, and as is demonstrated again in Scythe. I will say, it struggled to keep my attention sometimes, which is why it tooks me a while. It seemed like every time I put the book down, it was harder for me to pick it up, possibly because it’s a difficult and exhausting topic to think and read about, despite the book being as digestible as something on the topic of systematized death could be. 
also I think Chidi Anagonye would very much enjoy this book