By Kai Hsu
Genres: Science Fiction, Adventure, Dystopia, Romance
Age Range: 12+
Summary: 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.
Have you ever wondered about the true meaning of life and death and what it entails? Have you ever thought about what it would mean to live in a perfect world which is imperfect because of its perfectness? Scythe has that covered for you. It’s by far the most impactful story I’ve read, and the book is so well written that I think that even though the vocabulary is fit for middle/high schoolers, it could be read by anyone older. Taking place in a dystopian world where humanity has essentially become immortal, being able to reset age to a desired number and reviving centers which can bring people back from the dead (essentially acting as hospitals), Scythe encaptures the philosophy of life and death and questions that whether we, as humans, should really be tampering with mortality. In the dystopian world, select individuals known as scythes are chosen to kill people and curb the population, acting as a fixture in order to solve the problem of overpopulation in a world which has become immortal. When these chosen individuals are killed, they are not revived, leading scythes to be both renowned and feared, for if they aren’t renowned, then people fear that the scythes would go for them. The book doesn’t focus on the average person though. It’s written from the perspective of a scythe apprentice, and really makes you think about whether you could be a good person if you had to kill people on an everyday basis, and whether or not people should really have the power to determine whether people live or die.
Commentaires