Thunderhead Review

Paperback, 504 Pages
Fantasy/ Sci-Fi
By: Neal Shusterman
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟

“Death must exist for life to have meaning.”

🌟 The Toll, the third and final book to this series is out in a couple of days. I recently read scythe and finished this one last month and I am planning to read the finale as soon as I get it. I only recently joined the fandom and understood part of the hype surrounding this series.

🌟 I liked book one a tiny bit more than book two maybe because I was awed by the amazing world building and good writing. I still enjoyed these elements here but the progression was not that big for me.

🌟 There is a time jump here which I like. I think it gave the characters an opportunity to grow off pages. We have Citra and Rowan mainly, Scythe Curie and Scythe Faraday and finally Thunderhead and Greyson Tolliver. I enjoyed Citra and Rowna’s development, I was disappointed that Scythe Faraday did not appear much in this book because I really liked him in book 1. Thunderhead is good but Greyson’s chapter were not interesting for me until maybe the very end and that is part of the reason I enjoyed book 1 more.

“It’s my pleasure to be your displeasure.”

🌟 The writing is good, I love that I can fly through this book very easily, I literally finished the last 20 pages in 8 mins. I loved the Thunderhead dialogue chapters in book 1, the ones that are like text messages and I hoped that since this is Thunderhead’s book we will get plenty of those but we did not.

🌟 The book dives deep into philosophical and religious themes and this added more to world. I think religion is a big part of this book. The journal entries we had in book 1 are replaced by Thunderhead’s philosophy but it was still enjoyable!

🌟 I believe that all of what I mentioned above (New characters, complex themes and more world-building) resulted in the book having a slower pacing. I found some parts to be boring and it would have been better if they were cut off. The increasing number of pages with each installment may not be assuring if that is not improved in the next book.

🌟 I can not say much about the plot, Thunderhead governs everything in humans life except for the scythedom and gleaning! That is like a starting point and things are launched from there. The book used a trope that I am not a big fan but I was okay with it because it was well done and as one booktuber once said: I don’t believe in good or bad tropes because every trope can be done either way and this was an example of that. I do not regret reading the series and I am actually excited for book 3!

“if we were judged by the things we most regret, no human being would be worthy to sweep the floor.”

🌟 Summary and Prescription: Thunderhead takes a slowly different direction from book 1 with slower pacing, new characters and new themes. It is still enjoyable for fans of book 1 with the same level of smartness and complex world building. Thunderhead reminded me of AIDAN (Illuminae Series) so if you like AIDAN and like books that make you think, this book may be what you are looking for.