I love reading series. I love reading trilogies.

But you know what I don’t love? Reading amazing series, like Neal Schusterman’s Arc of a Scythe trilogy, that aren’t complete just yet. Because I need book 3 right now… please!

Since Thunderhead is the second book in the Arc of a Scythe trilogy, I am not going to be providing a summary for the sake of spoilers. If you’re interested in learning more about this series, I recommend checking out my review and non-spoilery thoughts on the first book, Scythe. Scythe and Thunderhead have deservingly caused a lot of hype in the book community in 2018. DON’T be like past me and avoid reading these books because you’re scared of the hype, WELCOME IT INTO YOUR BOOKISH HEART. If you still haven’t found a series that quenches your post- The Hunger Games feelings, Scythe is the one for you.

My Rating: 5/5 Stars

Everything below the following GIF I consider to be spoilers, so bye for now non-spoiler folks, courtesy of Ron Swanson.

My Thoughts:

 Even weighing in at 499 pages, Thunderhead is the type of read I totally would’ve flown through if it weren’t for one of the busiest weeks of my semester (pre-spring break crunch time is REAL). I recommend reading Thunderhead in the shortest amount of time possible for you just because it will be a bit easier for you to connect the dots (unless you’re a fantastic note taker while reading, unlike me). For example, it took me some going back to the very beginning of the book to realize the significance of Scythe Brahms gleaning Rowan’s dad, or you know, the fact that RAND IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE ALIVE. I didn’t catch this until Murina mentions the “late” Rand before meeting Faraday in the Library of Alexandria. Thinking back on these instances, if there is one word to describe Thunderhead, its revenge. You have Rowan gleaning scythes, Rand and Goddard (!?!) taking their role in the new order back, and overall, scythes getting back at scythes.

One of my favorite aspects of Thunderhead was of course reuniting with our cast of characters from Scythe. Scythe Curie/Marie remains to be my favorite character and while I’m so sad that we won’t see her journeying on to book 3 (unless Neal Shsuterman throws another crazy plot twist at us), I think her story ended in the best way possible in context. I do like Rowan as a character and his storyline with Goddard and Rand, but I have always preferred Citra/Anastasia. I would love to go back into the story and mark where we see Citra differentiate between calling herself Citra or Anastasia (I’d say she really delves back into Citra at the end of the book). BUT CAN WE PLEASE TALK ABOUT THE CHARACTER THAT FREAKED ME OUT THE MOST: GODDARD! I cannot get over how he took Tyger’s body and did the things and ahhhhhh, he’s back.

Thunderhead expectingly expands the world of Scythe with many new terms, places, and characters. The only new element I wasn’t too crazy about was how the majority of the journal entries were from the perspective of the Thunderhead. While this betters our understanding of the Thunderhead, I often found myself wanting entries from the scythes. Character-wise, I liked Murina’s role as Faraday’s research assistant and I’m super intrigued to see their role in this book three—which all depends on how much of a time jump we’re going to experience (more on the ending to come). Greyson easily became our third central character in the series, and I loved how his perspective gave us insight on how the Thunderhead works, unsavories, and Charter Regions. I’ve seen a few reviews compare Greyson to Jesus and the Thunderhead to God, which actually makes sense (Christine of polandbananasbooks did a fantastic job of describing her Garden of Eden and Greyson-as-Jesus theory in her review here). I would love to find an interview with Neal Schusterman to see if he actually took this into consideration when writing the series.

I guess this is where my book three theories and Thunderhead ending discussion is going to begin because I CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT IT! I really wonder how Greyson is going to come into play in book three. Has the Thunderhead given him instructions about Citra and Rowan? Will he find them?? I would love to see Faraday and Murina save them, especially with their knowledge of maps and the Thunderhead’s blindspots, but their ending was also quite ominous. I’m also interested to see how many revivals book three will bring. I think it’s safe to say that we will get Rowan and Citra back and unfortunately/rightfully not Marie, but maybe Xenocrates??? And how long is our time jump going to be? Will there even be one? If Citra and Rown start the book, I think there will be some sort of time jump, but maybe we’ll start with Greyson’s conversation with the Thunderhead. Or will we go between the past and present??ONLY BOOK 3 CAN TELL.

Have you read Scythe or Thunderhead? Do you have any theories about book 3? Share in the comments!