Two teens must learn the "art of killing" in this Printz Honor-winning book, the first in a chilling new series from Neal Shusterman, author of the New York Times bestselling Unwind dystology.
A world with no hunger, no disease, no war, no misery: humanity has conquered all those things, and has even conquered death. Now Scythes are the only ones who can end life-and they are commanded to do so, in order to keep the size of the population under control.
Citra and Rowan are chosen to apprentice to a scythe-a role that neither wants. These teens must master the "art" of taking life, knowing that the consequence of failure could mean losing their own.
Scythe is the first novel of a thrilling new series by National Book Award-winning author Neal Shusterman in which Citra and Rowan learn that a perfect world comes only with a heavy price.
It had an interesting premise that made you think. While it is geared towards a teen crowd, the basic premise is that everything has been figured out. There is nothing further to learn. No one dies anymore since disease is a thing of the past. So part of it is that people get bored with nothing really to do and since things are finite, certain people are selected to provide a necessary service and glean a certain amount of people each year so that the planet doesn't overpopulate.
Scythes only have a quota to reach each year but other than that there are not much in the way of guidelines. One scythe lives a plain life and uses old statistics to pick his gleans, another gleans those who seem to have checked out and no longer seem interested in living endlessly. Of course, there is the group that takes whatever they want from others and does mass gleanings.
I found this interesting in the fact that when life is handed to you, how easily it becomes boring, and how human nature will still find a way to twist utopia with corruption.
Reading updates
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22 December, 2018:
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22 December, 2018:
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