Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime
and start saving today with fast, free delivery
Amazon Prime includes:
Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.
Amazon Prime members enjoy:- Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
- Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
- Streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with limited ads on Prime Video.
- A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
- Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
- Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access
Important: Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.
-43% $7.39$7.39
Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com
$5.74$5.74
FREE delivery Monday, May 20
Ships from: onceuponatimebooks Sold by: onceuponatimebooks
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
OK
Image Unavailable
Color:
-
-
-
- To view this video download Flash Player
Audible sample Sample
Scythe (1) (Arc of a Scythe) Paperback – November 28, 2017
Purchase options and add-ons
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.
- Reading age12 years and up
- Print length464 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Grade level7 - 9
- Lexile measure830L
- Dimensions5.5 x 1.1 x 8.25 inches
- Publication dateNovember 28, 2017
- ISBN-10144247243X
- ISBN-13978-1442472433
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
Frequently bought together
Similar items that may deliver to you quickly
- Hope in the shadow of fear is the world’s most powerful motivator.Highlighted by 4,171 Kindle readers
- Humanity is innocent; humanity is guilty, and both states are undeniably true.Highlighted by 2,901 Kindle readers
- The greatest achievement of the human race was not conquering death. It was ending government.Highlighted by 2,595 Kindle readers
From the Publisher
Editorial Reviews
Review
"Shusterman is no stranger to pushing boundaries. Scythe owes an obvious debt to Unwind (2007) and its
sequels, and this succeeds as a sort of shadow companion to Patrick Ness’ Chaos Walking trilogy: instead
of exploring the ways in which men are monsters, this deals in what happens to men when there are no
monsters. When our reach does not exceed our grasp, when comfort is more easily obtained than struggle,
when our essential humanity doesn’t burn out but becomes slowly irrelevant, what becomes of us?
Readers will find many things in these pages. Answers to such unsettling questions will not be among
them." -- Maggie Reagan ― Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
It is the most difficult thing a person can be asked to do. And knowing that it is for the greater good doesn’t make it any easier. People used to die naturally. Old age used to be a terminal affliction, not a temporary state. There were invisible killers called “diseases” that broke the body down. Aging couldn’t be reversed, and there were accidents from which there was no return. Planes fell from the sky. Cars actually crashed. There was pain, misery, despair. It’s hard for most of us to imagine a world so unsafe, with dangers lurking in every unseen, unplanned corner. All of that is behind us now, and yet a simple truth remains: People have to die.
It’s not as if we can go somewhere else; the disasters on the moon and Mars colonies proved that. We have one very limited world, and although death has been defeated as completely as polio, people still must die. The ending of human life used to be in the hands of nature. But we stole it. Now we have a monopoly on death. We are its sole distributor.
I understand why there are scythes, and how important and how necessary the work is… but I often wonder why I had to be chosen. And if there is some eternal world after this one, what fate awaits a taker of lives?
—From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie
Product details
- Publisher : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers; Reprint edition (November 28, 2017)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 464 pages
- ISBN-10 : 144247243X
- ISBN-13 : 978-1442472433
- Reading age : 12 years and up
- Lexile measure : 830L
- Grade level : 7 - 9
- Item Weight : 13.1 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 1.1 x 8.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,619 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Neal Shusterman is the author of many novels for young adults, including Unwind, which was an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and a Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Readers, Everlost, and Downsiders, which was nominated for twelve state reading awards. He also writes screenplays for motion pictures and television shows such as Animorphs and Goosebumps. The father of four children, Neal lives in southern California.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonReviews with images
-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
Scythe is set in a world where humanity has conquered every threat. All knowledge has been collected and stored in a database called the cloud (sound familiar?). 😉 The cloud—aka the Thunderhead—has used this cumulative knowledge to conquer all disease and prevent all accidents before they happen. Nanites in each person’s bloodstream control human emotions and can be triggered on a moment’s notice to curb spikes in anger.
Since crimes of passion, disease, and accidents are absent and since aging can be reversed as often as a person likes, the world population burgeons in a very short time. Something must be done to curb this growth, and scythes are the eventual answer. Scythes are the only people not monitored by the Thunderhead and can thus glean excessive humans as they see fit (as long as they stay within their quotas, of course). Most scythes abhor the task and do it with a great weight on their shoulders and with great sympathy for the families left behind. But there are rogue scythes who enjoy what they do and try to make their gleanings as glamorous as possible.
As the population continues to grow, more scythes are necessary. We meet our main characters when the honorable Scythe Faraday (who reminded me a bit of Dumbledore at times) takes on two new apprentices, Citra and Rowan. We see why Faraday’s drawn to them and then are immersed in the secret training and society of the scythes. Each chapter is prefaced with a journal entry penned by a scythe, so we get to be in the heads of a variety of characters in addition to our two mains.
Shusterman struck the perfect balance between keeping me entertained and making me think, which is the formula for great dystopian, right? And what a journey he took me on with this tale! He presented quite a moral dilemma: How does a person maintain a sense of right and wrong when he or she truly lives above the law? And how do the scythes handle what they’re called to do each day without breaking?
I enjoyed seeing both the inner turmoil and the rapid growth in Citra and Rowan as they go through their training. Their personalities are different, and they often respond differently to the same situation. Yet a bond slowly forms between the two of them. This bond is tested as they continue on the perilous journey to become a scythe. And all the while, they both question if this is something they even wanted in the first place.
This story resonated with me for a number of reasons. As technology progresses by leaps and bounds every year and mankind attempts to conquer disease, hunger, and the other problems of the world, I found it fairly easy to envision a society like Citra and Rowan’s. It was interesting to see that even if crime appears to be conquered, Shusterman believes there will always be those who bend or break the law. He displays how human nature ultimately shines through. And I couldn’t help thinking of Christian ideals as I read. Can humans ever truly conquer evil? Or disease? And as soon as one problem is seemingly conquered, won’t others creep up? Shusterman suggests this is the case, and I tend to agree with him on this point. It seems perfection isn’t within human grasp without help from a higher power.
Scythe was full of characters who are glaringly real. I loved Citra and Rowan equally. I enjoyed seeing the same new concepts through both of their eyes. And I liked their banter. So far my review has focused on the heaviness of the book, but there’s humor, too, and it often appeared in conversations between these two. Shusterman also presented some sardonic commentary on current American society and its frivolity (which made me alternately smile and cringe) as he built his dystopian take on the nation of MidMerica.
What else can I say? I loved Scythe and definitely recommend it. It’s an exciting ride from beginning to end, with plenty of twists and turns along the way. I was truly surprised multiple times, and I loved every minute of it. The climax was exciting, providing the drama and answers I craved plus setting up Thunderhead, which is sure to be a great sequel.
Search for 'Book Series Recaps' to read all of our reviews as well as our full book recaps!
This book became one of my favourite reads of all time when I met Citra and Rowan five years ago. Since then I’ve wanted to visit them again but, like all of the books I’ve fallen in love with as an adult, I’ve procrastinated my reread. I wanted to hold onto the love at first read that I experienced. I was concerned that the shine wouldn’t be there the second time around.
I needn’t have worried. I didn’t think it possible but the reread shone even brighter for me. The characters I knew and loved, and those I loved to hate, came to me fully formed; I didn’t need to reacquaint myself with them, even after all of this time.
Citra and Rowan have been selected to undertake an apprenticeship. They will be spending the next year competing against one another for a job neither of them want. Ironically, this makes them the perfect candidates. Although they are both going to be trained by Scythe Faraday, their apprenticeships will be vastly different.
Theirs is a world of splats and revival centres, where nanites can dull your pain but also limit the spectrum of your emotions. It’s also a world where serial killers are not only sanctioned but revered. Here they’re called scythes and their kills aren’t murder; they’re gleanings.
Scythes have a quota of 260 gleanings per year. While this sounds like death is around every corner, your odds of being gleaned in the next 100 years are only 1 in 100.
On the one hand, I have trouble imagining living in a world where we know everything there is to know and have conquered disease and mortality itself. On the other hand, I was fully immersed in Citra and Rowan’s world. I believed.
I imagined the joy of having time to learn everything I wanted to learn, read all of the books on my TBR list and experience everything I’ve ever dreamed of. But because time’s no longer finite, the urgency of our world doesn’t exist in Citra and Rowan’s. There’s nothing left to strive towards, nothing new to discover.
“With nothing to really aspire to, life has become about maintenance. Eternal maintenance.”
I adored Scythe Faraday, with his thoughtful, compassionate approach. I loved the excerpts from scythes’ journals that caused me to think more deeply about their world as well as our own. I’m still chewing on the philosophical and moral issues raised in this book.
Favourite no context quote: “Well, she could learn self-control tomorrow. Today she wanted pizza.”
This remains one of my favourite books of all time. I can’t wait to binge the rest of the series.
Top reviews from other countries
P.S.: I did pick up Thunderhead the very next day I finshed reading The Scythe, and I must say, it's such a high jump from The Scythe! Truely amazing!