Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Breaking the Spine highlighting exciting upcoming releases.
This week’s Waiting on Wednesday features: Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman
As this is a sequel, the synopsis contains some spoilers, so just scroll down if you want to see my non-spoilerish thoughts.
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?
~~~So I finally did it. I read Scythe by Neal Shusterman. I knew that I would enjoy the book, but I didn’t count on absolutely loving it. I flew through this book, needing to know what happened next and I managed to read it in just a few days, which is very quick for me!
I was really intrigued by the idea of humanity reaching perfection, and in order for it to be sustainable, people were chosen to be gleaned. The job of gleaning falls to scythes, who are trained killers. As we see through the book, their method of choosing, and gleaning, can vary quite a bit.
The story is told through 2 points of views, and I enjoyed both of them. Normally, I find myself favouring one over another, rushing the one I didn’t like, but I equally loved the both of them and seeing what journeys they took. There were also a few plot twists throughout that made me go WHAT?! which prevented me from putting the book down.
The ending does finish on a bit of a cliffhanger, but it’s a satisfying one. Immediately after finishing the book, I had to look up the sequel as I knew there was one, it was just a matter of when. To my delight, it’s not that long to wait (under a fortnight) and I pre-ordered it straight away. I know when it arrives, It’ll go to the top of my tbr pile!
~~~ Published: Tuesday 9th January 2018The above books I’ve discussed relate to the US hardback editions. Scythe will be published in paperback form in the UK on Thursday 1st February 2018. I haven’t found a UK publication date for Thunderhead, but hopefully it won’t be too long after!
