35 & 36 // The Toll & Causes of Separation

The Toll | **** | is the final installment in Neal Shusterman's Arc of a Scythe trilogy. In a future where all human problems have been solved by a benevolent AI called The Thunderhead — including mortality — Shusterman explores serious moral and ethical questions in a way that's both engaging and accessible to teen readers. My ultimate analysis on the trilogy is that it's everything The Hunger Games could have been.

Causes of Separation | *** | is the finale to Travis JI Corcoran's Powers of the Earth, and carries on the war waged between earth (ruled by an increasingly despotic US government) and the moon (populated by freedom-minded expatriates who fled a system they believed to be fundamentally oppressive to liberty). It's not a subtle book: imagine Atlas Shrugged after lifting weights for a decade and getting really confident throwing its weight around. Still, it's a great yarn if you like highly improbable sci-fi (which is the point of the whole thing, right?).