Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe) Paperback – June 4, 2019

Ok so first of all.... where is book 3? Thunderhead was definitely faster paced than Scythe, but now I understand why Scythe had to build up the characters so well. The book basically takes you through Citra and Scythe Curie's (or Marie) journey on their relationship and some of their other unexpected endeavors. <spoiler>While Citra and Curie survive a few assassination attempts, we get to find out that after the great relief we felt in Scythe with Goddard dying... he's back from the dead. But not only is he back, alive and kicking, Scythe Rand (his right hand lady is back too), the used Tyger's body to bring Goddard back. Gruesome, most definitely, but I think Schuster likes the idea of post death revival scenarios.</spoiler> The best part about this book is the extra, in depth development of some of the characters. We get to see some weakness in the most "powerful" such as Scythe Constatine and the Thunderhead itself. Citra and Curie have their moments as well and bring Faraday back with a whole new mission is refreshing. <spoiler>The Thunderhead's development and it's overall lack of corruption is amazing but also completely infuriating. I wanted to throw the book down numerous times because I needed him to reach out to Greyson and I needed him to fix things. But, showing it's vulnerability and feelings about the world, made the Thunderhead one of my favorite characters. It would be so tragic to sit there and watch the world pass you by and all you can really do is relish in the good, guide the bad, and watch everything else fall apart because of some ancient rules.</spoiler> The ending of Thunderhead is probably one of the most captivating endings I've read in a long time. It will literally have you begging for the next book because there is absolutely <b>NO WAY</b> that things can end how they did. <spoiler>The Scythedom is pretty much in utter chaos now. Goddard and Rand sunk Endura. Citra and Rowan will be dead(ish) in a time capsule until someone finds them in who knows how long. Xenocrates will likely be resurrected as well, since there was no mention of the sharks devouring him. Curie self-gleaned along with a bunch of other Scythes - which is going to destroy Faraday. Faraday found the Marshall Islands and pieced together his nursery rhyme. Thunderhead is just pissed off for lack of a better explanation. Thunderhead ends the book entirely enraged and marks everyone unsavory. Only because Greyson hit a soft spot for me for some reason, I was delighted to see that his status was cleared. Pretty much what's going to have to come is Greyson getting Faraday and his assistant. They need to get to the where Endura was, rescue Rowan and Citra, probably find Xenocrates. Then they need to track down Goddard and Rand and finally kill them completely. BUT... I anticipate a twist in which Rand completely turns on Goddard after that painful rejection...</spoiler>To sum it all up. This book was great. Definitely a good read and just when you think you predicted just how everything turns out, everything gets thrown in for another loop.

WARNING: There will be spoilers in this review so read at your own riskI absolutely loved this book. The beginning was terrific with Faraday and Rowan and it progressed very well. The ending was just AMAZING! It was written so well and made me hate Goddard so much. It was so sad how H.S Curie lied to Citra and Rowan in order to save them because she knew that if she told them the truth, they would stick with her, and eventually die with her. Honestly, I didn't like any of the grandslayers so I didn't really care when they died. Also, Xenocrates was kinda stupid for throwing himself into the sharks so Goddard wouldn't get the satisfaction of killing him, which is stupid because I don't even think Goddard was there. Also because he killed himself he can't be revived so he would not have a chance to avenge the whole city. I'm also surprised nobody else thought to go in the vault because I'm pretty sure a lot of people would know it's basically indestructible, but then again it is a lot of stress and I wouldn't blame them for forgetting about it.

Again I will say it, Neal Shusterman (NS) is the Sci-Fi King of What If….He takes a thought like hey we have a cloud now and we are putting more and more stuff in it what if years and years down the road we have an AI version that is a mash up of The Cloud/Google/Facebook/Amazon and it had a social conscience and was put in charge of EVERYTHING. How would the world change?*** How could I not love the very beings who gave me life? Even if they don’t all agree that I am, indeed, alive. I am the sum of all their knowledge, all their history, all their ambitions and dreams. These glorious things have coalesced—ignited—into a cloud too immense for them to ever truly comprehend. But they don’t need to. They have me to ponder my own vastness, ***While Scythe focused on the training of two Scythes and so the beginning and end of chapter excerpts where from Scythes Journals in Thunderhead they are all the Thunderheads thoughts. It is really a great way to give the reader some outside information from the character PoVs and infodump without it ever seeming like an infodump. I loved learning more about the Thunderhead and realizing that maybe it is not as ambivalent as once thought since it seems to have some favorite humans out there.Rowan and Citra are both trying to change the Scythedom after the events at the end of Scythe. Citra is working from inside the system trying to make killing the populace a thought about affair with great respect. Rowan has to work from outside the system since he is being hunted, but he is also the hunter and is killing Scythes who are using their position for power, genocide or something else unsavory. They are so perfect for each other but at the same time they are torn apart by circumstance.*** “We weren’t close,” Citra insisted. “We weren’t anything.” And that hurt to admit more than her parents could possibly know. How could she and Rowan have any kind of relationship when they were forced to be lethal adversaries? Even now, when he was hunted and she was yoked with the heavy responsibility of scythehood, how could there be anything between them but a dark well of longing? ***So you know I totally ship them! I wish they got more page time together in this book but due to the roles they are playing there wasn’t a lot.New to the story is Greyson. He is a kid with absentee parents that was raised by the Thunderhead. All emotions that he should feel towards his family he feels for the Thunderhead, it was the one constant in his life that was always there for him and he would do anything to help the Thunderhead or be closer to it. This includes an undercover mission that the Thunderhead will not be able to give him any direct direction on. I liked the addition of Greyson to the cast. Through him we were able to see how some of the people who like to rebel against society lived.*** Simply put, humanity had a need to be bad. Not everyone, of course—but I calculated that 3 percent of the population could only find meaning in life through defiance. Even if there was no injustice in the world left to defy, they had an innate need to defy something.  Anything. ***This was a great bridge book to the Trilogy. Now you’re probably saying, “But Robin I thought this was a dualogy.” Yeah me too, but then I got to the end and thought really, that is where this story ends. But what about Faraday and his Quest? What about the thing the Thunderhead did at the end? What about Rowan and Citra and their fate??? What about the bad guy???? Well guess what there will be answers to all of those questions and more in Arc of the Scythe #3 that I had no idea there would even be but color me happy cuz more books in this world.This is Neal Shusterman so expect some moments that just rip your heart out. If you read Unwind you know the kind of shocking moments I’m talking about. There are some really good twists and the world building was excellent opening up more information about the Scythes and the politics within the Scythedom. The Thunderhead is a fantastic character as well. It has evolved from what it was originally supposed to be and I loved getting a sense of the internal struggle it was having since clearly it is more attached to a few in the general populace and being unable to intervene to help them is having more of an affect on it than it should.*** And the pain . . . the pain of my awareness is unbearable. Because my eyes do not close. Ever. And so all I can do is watch unblinkingly as my beloved humankind slowly weaves the rope it will use to hang itself. —The Thunderhead ***Scythe was in my top 10 reads of 2017 and this was a great follow-up to that. While I was slightly disappointed that this was not the end of the story since I was planning on a dualogy and knowing all of the things after this book I’m also really excited that there will be a final book in this series. I can’t wait to see what else will happen to all of our heroes and it will be interesting to see what kind a punishment the bad guy/guys will finally get for all of his/their crimes which are many.

Ainda não acabei, mas estou achando uma ótima continuação do Scythe. A história prende, com muitas surpresas ao longo do livro

Interesting Setting and in my opinion the best book of the series

Inizierò chiedendo: quando esce l’ultimo libro della trilogia?Sono rimasta sconvolta dalla conclusione del libro, è come se qualcuno di portasse sull’orlo di un precipizio e poi se ne tornasse a casa, lasciandoti in bilico. Allora zio Neal, mi dici se devo cadere o no? Perché qui non so se resisto all’arrivo del terzo libro tradotto…WOW! Che emozioni! Posso affermare con assoluta certezza che avrei voluto tirare uno schiaffo a molti personaggi durante il racconto, ma altrettante volte avrei voluti prenderli in braccio come peluches e coccolarli.Credo di aver scritto almeno ogni due righe a Martina perché lo shock era un mood costante. Devo dire che lo stile di scrittura e scorrevolissimo e di sicuro Mr. Shustermann è un maestro dell’hype, perché io ho letto il libro a una velocità allucinante; mi sembrava di non riuscire a leggere abbastanza in fretta per riuscire a carpire tutte le informazioni utili.I personaggi sono rimasti in linea con il loro passato, ma si sono anche evoluti in modo coerente. Mi è piaciuta molto la caratteristica distinzione tra Citra e Anastasia, facendo notare come in realtà in una sola persona possano convivere più personalità.Madame Curie è un IDOLO!Maestro Faraday non dava l’impressione nel primo libro, ma nel secondo ci si rende conto come lui non rompe le regola, ma si impegna per aggirarle e trovare dei cavilli tecnici che sono WOW. (He’s sneaky, I like it!)

!!!Neal Shusterman has such a way to keep the readers, constantly, on the edge of their seats.The world-building is amazing and so is the character development. Each and every character is so complex, one of them being Rand. The ending just hits you so hard and you barely have time to process it because so many things are happening at the same time.Can't wait to read The Toll.

En cuanto al envío, tardó un poco menos de lo estimado lo que me encantó, es de tapa gruesa sin embargo no esperes la portada que se muestra en la imagen , si viene pero a forma de sobre portada PERO! Personalmente fue una grata sonrisa ya que la portada está hecha con un desnivel/ grabado ( un poco tenue ) con una imagen de nubes ( haciendo alusión al título del libro ) y en el color de la portada clásica, pedí este libro junto con el primero y es el mismo estilo, sólo que en vez de las nubes y el verde , está en un color rojo y un par de Guadañas cruzadas, una compra con la que estoy más que contento ya que la relación calidad / precio es excelente, tiene una pequeña franja negra del lado izquierdo de la portada que tiene un par de puntos blancos , que solo te importarán si eres muy quisquilloso, dichos puntos sólo venían en thunderhead por lo que pienso que fue un caso súper aislado.