#10 in Dystopian
Scythe
- 450
- Pages
- about 8 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“Scythe” stands out for its carefully built premise: a future without natural death, where a chosen few must kill so that the population does not grow unchecked. The book treats that as a moral problem rather than a gimmick, and its tension comes from scythes who understand their duty and their privilege in opposite ways. A dark, thoughtful opener to a trilogy, for readers who like adventure with an ethical question attached.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Scythe is a 2016 young adult novel by Neal Shusterman and is the first in the Arc of a Scythe series. In the far future, death, disease, and unhappiness have been virtually eliminated due to advances in technology, and a benevolent artificial intelligence known as the Thunderhead peacefully governs a united Earth. To replicate natural death and keep population growth in check, a group of humans known as Scythes are mandated to kill.
Reading order · Arc of a Scythe
Full order & progress →- ScytheThis book
8.38.3 / 10 - Thunderhead
8.58.5 / 10 - The Toll
8.28.2 / 10
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.3 across 1,273 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 90% of the weight and the score stays at 8.3 — the Dystopian average of 7.7 barely moves it.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.6 | 30 | 2% |
| Hardcover | 8.3 | 1.2K | 98% |
Frequently asked
What age is Scythe for?
Scythe sits on the Young adult shelf in the sources we use, which by convention means roughly ages 13 and up. This is a guide from the book’s category, not a publisher’s age rating. It has 450 pages — longer than 56% of the ranked books in Dystopian.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Dystopian — with scores between 8.0 and 8.6, closest to this book.
