Recommended Age:
14
+
Best for readers who like fast-paced, immersive dystopian fiction with character-driven moral dilemmas.
About the Book
In a future where humanity has conquered death and disease, the only form of permanent death is gleaning performed by robed Scythes who cull the population to prevent overgrowth and two teenagers are chosen as apprentices to a Scythe with very different philosophies about how life and death should be managed. A richly imagined, philosophically serious YA dystopian novel exploring the ethics of choosing who lives and who dies. The first book in the Arc of a Scythe trilogy.
Content Ratings
💡
Moderate Themes
The ethics of population control through selective killing, the corrupting potential of absolute power over life and death, and the psychological impact of being trained to kill are sustained throughout.
⚔️
High Violence
The process of selecting people to die involves hundreds killed within the story. A corrupt authority orchestrates a massacre that is graphically described. Violence is central to the premise.
