When I finished reading Scythe by Neal Shusterman back in 2020, I knew I wanted to continue this series. So, I started Thunderhead a few months later. However, this was during the first year of the pandemic. I just couldn’t get through the book, so I put it aside when I was about 30% in. Now as life has returnt to normal, I wanted to give this book a second chance and prove that it really was the timing that put me off. Well, that happened to be successful.

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• Title: Thunderhead
• Author: Neal Shusterman
• Series: Arc of a Scythe #2
• Publication date: 9 januari 2018
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• ISBN: 9781442472457
• Number of pages: 504
• Genre: Young Adult, Dystopian

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?

Characters

Since the storyline picks up shortly after where the events in Scythe left off, we got to see many familiar faces. However, several new characters got introduced. This was a little confusing at first. First of al because it has been a while since I’ve read the previous book and secondly because all characters seem to play a role in this book. Shustrman changes POVs a lot and especially that was a little bit confusing. However, all characters have been added to this story with reason. They all play a vital role and that will become clear further on in the book. In terms of growth, Citra outstood the most. She had trouble settling into the profession of being a scythe. However, due to events in this book, she learns to accept her role into this world and therefore is able to finally settle. Furthermore, some shocking stuff happens to other characters, but I can’t say a lot about this due to spoilers.

Atmosphere

This book was a little slow at the start, allbeit pretty tense. There was already some sort of tension, because we know that there is something at stake for one of the main characters. This slow pace creates space for the author to develop this world even more. In Thunderhead, we travel a lot since our characters do. Also, the story is set in different places. Furthermore, this world should be perfect without imperfections, but we get to know that even a perfect world has its flaws. The book never lost its tension and that’s actually pretty great.

Writing

The writing was good. Shusterman has a way of sucking you into the story from the start. Also, it’s pretty easy to follow, even with the number of characters and quite complex world.

plot

As stated before, the plot was a little slow at the start. To be honest that’s not a big issue since this gave me the opportunity to get into the story again. I didn’t remember everything so a refresher was nice. There’s no summary at the start of the book, but I got the hang of it whilst reading so that’s good. The plot grows more and more further on in the book, as well as the world does. The ending leaves enough questions for the next book.

Intrigue

Oh yes, this book intrigued me. As I listened to the audiobook, it took me longer to finish it since I didn’t have much opportunity to listen. I was on a week’s break from work, but I scheduled more blog content than actually picking up a book. Greg Tremblay suits this story perfecty as narrator and I wasn’t annoyed at all. Some audiobook narrators put me off, but he doesn’t.

Logic

Yes, everything was logic. Some reveleations have ben done which left me shocked, but that’s alright because they have a purpose and help the plot further. They even leave room for cliffhangers. It’s logic that opponents of the Scythedom get a voice in this second novel too, since the first book only focusses on becoming a Scythe and what that means.

Enjoyment

Overall, I enjoyed my time reading Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman. I’m glad I gave this book a second chance and I got proven right that it was just the timing that was off the first time around. I am really curious for the events in The Toll, the series finale. I’ve seen mixed reviews about that one, something that makes me a little nervous though.