Book Review: Thunderhead (Arc of Scythe Book 2)

Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book was hard to put down. I am slowly rereading each chapter to carefully track the changes in the plot and connect gaps that were left open in book 1. There was still no clear explanation on Scythe Faraday faking his death but, from his travels and trajectory in book 2, he sure will play a big role in book three.

In this second book of the series, Shusterman lets us in into the mindscape and emotions of the Thunderhead. Considering that the Thunderhead is a computer program, an Artificial Intelligence, it remains a product of humanity. It is an amalgamation of man's greatest dreams and worst achievements. Therefore, it knows the human heart so well and given its all seeing eye, cameras and bots all around, it can meddle with their affairs. Then again, it does not entirely do so.

As the utopian world where the Thunderhead exist as god unravels, it makes use of people it can trust and who, based on a mathematical computation and algorithm, can save the world from destruction. From what we learn in history, the downfall of one world takes time. Empires are not built in a day and so its. Book three will be a difficult read and I will be at the edge of my seat hoping for the heroes to rise and save the day.

Thunderhead retains everything I love in book 1: the irreverence, the humor, the murders that are cushioned with moral explanations and philosophical ruminations and the love story. The ending tore me apart and the only consolation I had at the closing chapter was the idea of how romantic it is to die for and with the one you love.



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Book Review: Scythe (Arc of a Scythe)

Scythe by Neal Shusterman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My review of Scythe

Definetly a series that I will watch out for till the last book. One of my best reads of 2017.

Philosophical. Funny. Utterly human!

What worked

As a first book in the series, its duty is to build a believable utopian world and characters to inhabit that universe. In this age and time where death and disease have all been eradicated, I find myself looking for grounding so I could suspend my disbelief. Shusterman succeeds to some extent by pulling up the sci-fi card.

Thanks to science and technoligy, immortality has been achieved. The fountain of youth is no longer the stuff of legend and the elixir of life can be accessed and availed in a revival center. The world is controlled, managed and sustained by the Thunderhead, an AI that supplanted the Cloud as well as corruptible man made institutions. Gone are the imperfect political systems of the world except for the Scythedom composed of Scythes, gleaners of the human race. They are the grim reapers and people who populate Shusterman’s world regard them as honorable and frightful beings licensed to take lives and to bring an end to one’s immortality.

And there lies the conflict. Scythes are humans too and they are fallible. While many of them live up to the morals of gleaning, and its agonies, many abuse this power.

It is here in this world and in this problem where teenagers Citra and Rowan found themselves in. Both became scythes at the end of Book 1. The former was ordained by the Scythedom but the later became a vigilante. It is their story arcs that had me hook, line and sinker.

What did not work

One of my favorite characters in the book faked his death and it was not explained how. There are more loop holes and gaps in the plot. I had to put them aside to join in Citra’s and Rowan’s journey.

Definitely, I am expecting an answer to my questions in Book 2!


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