At our latest book club meeting, Nobel team members enjoyed sharing thoughts about “Scythe” by Neal Shusterman, a young-adult science fiction dystopian novel, the first installment in the “Arc of a Scythe” series.

The book imagines a world where humanity has conquered everything and has solutions in place to defeat hunger, disease, war and misery. Even death is in humanity’s control with a group of trained “Scythes” responsible to end lives in order to keep the world population from growing indeterminately. We follow the stories of Citra and Rowan, who are selected as apprentices to join the Scythedom and face a number of unexpected obstacles on their journey.

Through skillful writing, Neal Shusterman creates a fictional universe that mirrors real society and poses some philosophical questions related to power ethics, the thin line between what it’s considered to be good or evil and what makes us human. All these topics were great discussion starting points for our book club debates. Most of our members are thinking about picking up the second book in the series as well, especially since it’s titled “Thunderhead”, an entity that intrigued us throughout the first book.  

At our next book club meeting, we will be discussing “Good Omens” by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, a humorous urban fantasy.

N.A.R.A. (Nobel Anonymous Readers Association) is our company book club and the perfect setting for informal and engaging monthly discussions about our shared passion for reading and books. We are an international company, so our meetings take place in an online environment. We always enjoy our time together as we get to connect and exchange opinions with colleagues from different countries.