Scythe
written by Neal Shusterman
What if you lived in a world where all problems are solved? Global warming is fixed. There’s food, water, and shelter for everyone. And you can even turn your age down like adding minutes on an egg timer. No one will die of old age or illness, but there’s still the possibility of being gleaned.
It’s been a couple hundred years in Citra and Rowan’s world since humanity ran out of problems to solve and passed the reins off to a benevolent AI named the Thunderhead. The Thunderhead attends to all matters except one. Humanity decided that people would still need to die to give back some of the meaning that they lost with mortality. Someone would need to decide who died, when, and how. The Thunderhead would not be given this responsibility, and so the Scythdom was born.
Citra and Rowan were living their separate normal lives when Scythe Faraday chose them to be his apprentices. Over a year they would both be trained in the ways of a Scythe, how to glean, and how to endure the responsibility with humility and compassion. Only one will be selected to graduate into a full scythe.
This is not a story of a dystopian world, instead you see the Scythdom, the last human authority, grapple with corruption, opposing ideals, and the power they wield. You start by seeing the Scythdom through Rowan and Citra's eyes before they are hand-picked to be apprentices. Then you are introduced to multiple perspective on the current state of the Scythdom and the differing thoughts on death and what it means to be responsible for it.