Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“If we were judged by the things we most regret, no human being would be worthy to sweep the floor.”- Thunderhead, Neal Shusterman 

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?

Everyone has their blind-spot writer. You know, the guy (or gal) that you just can't not read or not like no matter what he (or she) puts out? This is usually because one thing that author wrote has had such a huge impact on your life that he is all but untouchable. 

And for me, that man is Neal Shusterman. Because he wrote the Unwind series.

For those who don't know, the Unwind series was my Harry Potter/Mortal Instruments/whatever book series that consumed your life for years at a time. It is the only series I have ever hardcore fangirled over, hardcore shipped, wrote fanfics and drew fanart of. I consider myself to be, for the most part, an impartial bookworm, but because Neal Shusterman's Unwind world had such a big impact on my life, this is not going to be the most impartial review in the world. 

And yet, I had a hard time with the first Scythe. I still really liked it and it did make my 2016 best books of the year list, but we've already established I am not the best judge when it comes to Shusterman's work. But at the same time, I went in with too high expectations and found it difficult to connect with any of the characters and lacking a certain... warmth or humor to it that Shusterman works usually have. Thunderhead is not any different from its predecessor in that aspect. Expect that it's managed to be even more dark and gritty and humorless. 

Now, I don't demand my books to be funny, and especially not dark and violent books. But it's just not typical of a Shusterman work to be so devoid of laughs. Challenger Deep, his serious National Book Award winner got more laughs out of me than this, and that's a deep contemporary about a teenage boy's struggles with schizophrenia. That's not to say Shusterman can't do serious well, he can, he's created some of the most bone-chilling "I have no mouth and I must scream" moments in YA literature, and quite a few are in this book. And yet, that hasn't kept him from putting in comic relief before. I guess what I'm saying is, I want Hayden back.

But Shusterman's characters are still good, which is one of his best assets as a writers. Citra and Rowan are a great couple, and if I was still in the shipping phase of my life you know I'd go for them hard. There's a new character that debuted in this novel, Greyson, whom I also liked. In fact, the three- Citra, Rowan, and Greyson- are forming a very Connor-Risa-Lev team which I liked because, again, I love those characters and seeing another iteration of them makes me smile. Of those, I think Greyson being Lev is the most obvious line one can draw, since the two had similar arcs and a similar theme of a life-changing event causing religious abandonment (metaphorically in Greyson's case) and rebellion only to come back around to it in the end. The difference between them is that Greyson is a consistently tolerable character while Lev had a tendency to get stuck between my teeth. But other than that, Citra and Rowan are consistently good, and my only complaint character-wise is that I had a hard time connecting to anyone that wasn't Citra or Rowan or Greyson.

Which brings me to Shusterman's other biggest asset as a writer- he is a damn good plot-maker. He has a wonderful imagination- with a lot of wonderfully fucked up ideas- and the chops to bring those ideas to life. With the Arc of a Scythe books, he is at the top of his world-building game and it is a joy to read. While it is true that Shusterman's idea of a utopia is, for me, more along the same lines as a dystopia, his worlds are still a lot of fun for me to let my mind wander in. His main talent lies in creating absolutely messed up violent scenes that engross me completely. I also admire his courage in killing off any and all characters at any point in his books, no matter how major or minor they may be, and I think Shusterman's great at inserting subtle musings on human nature and culture, though in this book I admit he's not on his best game. My only complaint plot-wise is the addition of election commentary that was a bit too heavy-handed for my tastes, though I may be hyper-sensitive about shit like that thanks to post-election burnout. Yes, even almost two years after the election I still get flashbacks about the Hillary vs Trump nightmare of 2015-2016.

I mean, Thunderhead didn't completely hold my attention all the way through, but it was still a good book from a guy who basically owns my soul at this point. The Arc of a Scythe isn't a new favorite series of mine, not in the way Unwind was, but it's a solid science-fiction/dystopian series that feels refreshingly new, something that few YA speculative fiction novels can claim. This isn't Neal Shusterman's best series, in my eyes, but it's one that I look forward to seeing the conclusion of and I hope to God it blows me away. I want so badly to love these books more than I do.

8-8.5 out of 10

If you liked this book, then you may also like:

The Unwind series, because of course. If the Arc of a Scythe is Neal Shusterman at his most optimistic, wait 'till you see him at his most pessimistic...