Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe, #2)

by Neal Shusterman

At the beginning of this book, I felt a bit conflicted about it, to be honest. After reading Scythe, my expectations were so high and I loved getting to know the world, politics, and reflecting what I read in our world. However, as the second book in a series, the worldbuilding is already done for a large part. That also means that even though there are still events happening that make you think about society in general, it will be less because you already know this world and there are fewer surprises. But I went into this book with the wrong mindset. I wanted it to make me think about society again, which it did, but I had unrealistically expected more. Upon rereading, it would probably be a five-star book.

Neal Shusterman had a though job creating a sequel to Scythe, but he did it wonderfully. There is only one element of the book that I have some problems with. Goddard coming back to life. I don't know, it felt as if he needed Goddard to have a story. To blame it on the same bad guy once again. I think it would have been interesting to see young scythes affected by Goddard and have them becoming the new bad guy in the story, instead of bringing him back to life in such a horrific way. However, bringing him back to life was one of the main societal issues that this book touched upon, so at the same time, I was happy that he decided to go for this approach.

Can we talk about the end of this book? I did not want Curie to die. However, since no one actually died for longer than a book in this series yet, who knows? But she was so precious and I felt for Citra knowing that her only 'family' was no longer with her. Yes, she still has her actual family, but there is a huge gap between them now. I also believe that Faraday doesn't feel like family as much to her as Curie did. I wonder if the scythedom will try to find some of the bodies that haven't been eaten by the sharks and revive them. Hopefully Curie.

I also wonder if there will be a time jump (although that is probably known already) for the start of book three or if we are going to follow different characters now Citra and Rowan are literally frozen in the depths of the sea.