Rowan and Citra take opposite stances on the morality of the Scythedom, putting them at odds, in the second novel of the chilling New York Times bestselling series from Neal Shusterman, author of the Unwind dystology.
Rowan has gone rogue, and has taken it upon himself to put the Scythedom through a trial by fire. Literally. In the year since Winter Conclave, he has gone off-grid, and has been striking out against corrupt scythes—not only in MidMerica, but across the entire continent. He is a dark folk hero now—“Scythe Lucifer”—a vigilante taking down corrupt scythes in flames.
Citra, now a junior scythe under Scythe Curie, sees the corruption and wants to help change it from the inside out, but is thwarted at every turn, and threatened by the “new order” scythes. Realizing she cannot do this alone—or even with the help of Scythe Curie and Faraday, she does the unthinkable, and risks being “deadish” so she can communicate with the Thunderhead—the only being on earth wise enough to solve the dire problems of a perfect world. But will it help solve those problems, or simply watch as perfection goes into decline?
4/5
I received a copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
As soon as I saw that Scythe had a sequel coming out, I was immediately intrigued and excited to give it a go. And Shusterman definitely delivered when it came to this sequel. It’s a little less creepy than the previous book, but I think that’s partially just because I’ve now read enough that the bizarre ideas of this series have normalized a bit more for me. But it was a fast paced, insane story that kept you hooked until the last page, when you’re angry because of a bloody cliffhanger.
The Good Points of Thunderhead:
I thought it was so cool how we got to see so much more of the Thunderhead in this book. I felt that the first book left me with a lot of questions regarding this particular aspect of the story, so this solved a lot of that. It’s a little weird to have the cloud as a character in the book, but it works for this one.
I also enjoyed how we got to see some other aspects and places within the world, such as the unsavories and the less controlled areas of the world. We got to see a lot more of the environment that created the scythes, and it answered a lot of questions that the previous book had brought up.
The pacing in this book is crazy. It’s not a particularly short book, but it goes so quickly because every time you turn around, something else insane is happening and you’re left questioning what’s wrong with the world.
Dang, that ending. I need the next book now, because you can’t just leave things like that. Not cool, Shusterman.
The Downsides of Thunderhead:
Though we got to see a lot more of the world, I found that there was less development in this book than in the previous one, which left me with a lot of questions. Citra felt like a different character, but I’m not sure how we got there, and there was so much time spent on the action that I felt like I’d missed something here and there that would have helped me understand it a bit better.
This does feel like a second book, and a lot of it is focused on getting ramped up for the third book in the series. It’s not as bad as other middle books, but it does still feel like one.
All in all, I really enjoyed Thunderhead, and I’m impatiently waiting to see what the hell Shusterman is going to do with that ending. If you like dystopians-that-feel-like-utopian books, weird things, and technology, you’ll likely enjoy the Scythe series!
Find Thunderhead on Book Depository
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