Book Review: Thunderhead by Neal Schusterman
Rating: 13/10
Hello, my book dragon darlings,
We are finally doing a full-length book review again! It’s been so long. I hope you have missed them as much as I have. I had a lot of thoughts reading this book. A lot of thoughts. Some of them were along the lines of “oh no oh no. oh no.” some of them were much more complicated. Most of my thoughts were filled with worry for my fictional children. I was very stressed when reading this book. I started it one morning thinking I’ll just read a chapter or two, and the next thing I know I am a hundred pages in and see no way to stop without having a mini emotional breakdown. Usually, when I am a hundred pages in I am still willing to put the book down, and pick it back up later with no problem. Not so with this one. I was stuck in the story from the beginning to the end. All five hundred pages kept me spellbound.
This book is a sequel, so if you are here you are lost. Please go read the first book, but if it’s been a while the series takes place in a utopian society. Humanity has overcome all of its problems. People do not get sick, they do not have to work, they do not die, and they have invented an AI system called the Thunderhead that runs the world. The only exceptions are the Scythes. They are responsible for killing. The population keeps growing, and the earth still has a maximum capacity, so someone has to do the job of killing. The Thunderhead stays out of the Scythdom, as it believes that humanity should decide who lives and who dies. And sadly humans are still capable of corruption, evil, and vices so of course things are bound to go wrong eventually. And in this book, things go very very wrong.
We are now entering SPOILER LAND, please stay out of SPOILER LAND. it is not for my benefit I ask. I ask for your benefit. You do not want to be spoiled.
Alright first things first, holy shit what did I read? I was a mess by the time the book ended. My brain was short-circuiting. We open ten months after the end of the first book. If you recall Scythe ended on a bit of a crazy cliffhanger so it was unexpected that we would jump back in such a long time after the first book ended. Citra or Scythe Anastasia has been undergoing her Scythe duties under the watchful eye of Scythe Curie and the two of them fell into a good routine. It was always a point of contention for Citra that the Scythes never give their victims time to prepare. Of course, she would choose to give her chosen targets a month’s heads up. She is not breaking any rules as in the pre Thunderhead people often lived a prolonged death. Cancer is the first thing that comes to mind. These people have no concept of what cancer entailed. Citra (Anastasia) is the closest thing they get. She also lets her targets pick their method of death. I have to admit I started thinking about how I would die if I was given a choice and I would want it quick. So probably a gunshot? Or pills? I don’t know. This is a very morbid thing to be thinking about. I do not live in a world where death has been conquered, death is very much here. When reading this book I tried to put myself in the mental space of that world and this is where I ended up. Quick let’s all think about ute kittens and puppies. Aren’t they adorable? Yes, they are.
While Citra/Anastasia is exploring who is as a Scythe Rowan/Lucifer has been abandoned once again. At the end of the first book, Rowan got into a car with Scythe Faraday who is still technically dead. You would think Faraday would try to do some mentoring and maybe go over some trauma with Rowan, but no. Faraday would rather spend the next ten months telling himself he is great at making decisions. Rowan is left to fend for himself and he decides to spend his time cleansing the Scythedom. Its the whole killer of killers type of thing. It is not a bad idea. The Scythedom needs an internal affairs department and someone whose job it is to police other Scythes, but Rowan is going into full-blown vigilante mode. Granted, he does not have a lot of choices but to go into vigilante mode. It’s either that or hiding for a year and hoping they won’t find him after time is up. Rowan goes after Scythes who are displaying serial killer symptoms. One plays the same piece of music for his victims and their family before he kills them. That is a signature ladies and gentleman. Another one goes after people of Nordic descent, and that is a type. Fun fact: groups of people want to preserve specific genetic markers and cultural heritage. It’s an interesting thought. I am a firm believer that history can teach us everything about life, but the problem is that people will take a lesson from history they want to take. In the society run by the Thunderhead so many people do not feel the responsibility for themselves, I wonder how these groups manage the responsibility of preserving a culture. I am getting off the point but this is what the book did to my brain. Rowan has my vote of approval because I do not like serial killers or bigots. Kill them all sweetie!
Rowan and Citra have a secret meeting filled with angst and longing and I am here for it. They have not seen each other for ten months, and thus had lots of time to think about the other. What I like about those two is that they don’t always understand the choices that the other one is making but they do not judge each other. They communicate or at least attempt to communicate. Then off they go to do their respective jobs, and I cry on the inside because I didn’t even dramatic hand claps. I got nothing! Their relationship is not dramatic like many book relationships. They do not proclaim their love for each other every ten pages. It is a quiet thing, shown in the small details, and all the more powerful for it.
We are introduced to Grayson, a child raised by The Thunderhead. He desperately wants to be a Nimbus agent, but The Thunderhead has very different plans for him. Poor Grayson sees nothing of what happens to him coming. He is given information that Scythe Curie and Anastasia are being targeted for assassination and does the only thing he can to save them. He jumps in front of their car. Yeah, Marie is teaching Citra to drive. Grayson gets temporarily dead but Marie and Anastasia walk away and at least Anastasia is interested as to why he felt the only viable way to save them was to run in front of their car. When poor Grayson wakes up he is marked as an Unsavory, and thus his spiral starts. But thank s to his suffering we get to take a look at a whole other segment of society. The Thunderhead is so clever. It designed a system that allows the “rebels” of society to feel like they are rebelling while at the same time doing nothing of the sort. There are designated clubs for Unsavories to break the rules. We have the diner where people get to pulley actors hired for the purpose. We have a fake jail, that functions exactly like an escape room. My jaw was on the floor when I read about just how clever of a system the Thunderhead had designed. It wants to make everyone happy and knows that some people need different things to be happy. Some need to punch a geek in the face and take their girl. Well as long as the actors are okay with it and get paid to do it. It’s not like permanent harm can be done to anyone. Except when it can. Grayson’s creepy new girlfriend scared me. She is a legitimate psychopath, and she somehow got away from the Thunderhead. She is part of another plan to assassinate Citra and Marie. Because people are scared of them they must die. Poor Grayson goes in to report to his undercover agent only to find out that his psychotic girlfriend had him Scythed. Here we have the first connection to all the storylines. The Scythe who killed the agent was the same Scythe Rowan let live at the beginning of the book Rowan! What did I say? I said kill them all sweetie. I did not say let them live so they can create chaos for all of you. Why does no one listen to me?
The Thunderhead steals the show. It is not a person but the way it thinks just blows my mind. I already mentioned that it provides conditions that can satisfy the “rebels” of society. It also runs Charter Regions. Now, this is fascinating. Essentially Charter regions are areas that require certain things. For example, in the Philippines, everyone is required to get a body modification. The thunderhead observes and implements the most successful parts of the experiment in the rest of the world. You are of course welcome to leave a charter region. Everyone lives there by choice and leaves by choice. And there is Texas. In Texas, The Thunderhead does not interfere. It says that it allows anarchy there. And that perhaps it learned most about humanity from there. It disturbs me how dependent on the Thunderhead humanity has become. There is no real motivation to achieve because they don’t have to and in theory, they have eternity. Why try if you have forever to live and there is someone who will provide everything for you. And the Thunderhead knows that humanity is complacent. It tries to provide for everyone’s news but it also knows that in doing so it’s creating a society of unmotivated sheep. Well, it was nicer about the summation than I am. I am mean.
Okay now that I got most of my initial thoughts out of the way, it is time to cry and scream.
Poor Tyger. I mean how awful is it to be selected to be the body to Goddard’s head simply because you had the bad luck of being Rowan’s friend. I was nervous the whole time Tyger was with Rand I was breaking out into nervous hives. He is such a naive creature and she… well she needs a lot of therapy and medication. I did not see it coming. I did not see that resurrection common the way it did. How the actual fuck? I knew Rand would come back, they never found her body. But Rowan freaking decapitated Goddard. So they had to go and stick his head on someone else’s body! How does that even work? How do you do that?
this image was necessary
Not only does the serial killer/ cult leader come back to life as a head he wants to run for head Scythe and my brain goes: oh FUCK. But it’s okay because Anastasia points out that technically he’s only 7% of Goddard and that’s just not enough to consider him a scythe. Okay deep breaths, maybe we will be okay. I mean he still will keep killing Rowan as stress relief while we wait for the verdict but surely things will work out.
While all this is going on Grayson is screwed. He’s wanted for the attempted murder of Marie and Anastasia, there is no one to fix his records and change him from his Unsavory alter ego Slayde back to Grayson. The Thunderhead can’t talk to him according to its own rule.s Citra sends him off to a compound of the Tonists to keep him safe and alive while she’s dealing with the Goddard bullshit. He’s having a crisis of faith and identity. What happens to you when you go too deep undercover with no way out? Well, you are Grayson. The Thunderhead tries to give him a sign but he’s so deep in his misery he can’t see it.
Rowan is being murdered over and over because he won’t let Gaddard win much to the confusion of Rand. That poor psycho bitch is such a follower. Rowan gets a visit from the Thunderhead when he’s dead-ish and is told he has 37% of changing the world. Thunderhead let me point out that Goddard came back as 7% and that was too much so maybe be more optimistic. So things are going well.
The only person who seems to not be in imminent danger is Ferady because he’s still pretending to be dead and got himself a librarian assistant (okay I want that job but I would be much more sarcastic while doing it) and is looking for the mythical land of Nod that was set up by the first Scythes as a failsafe on society. The Thunderhead is sent into a tizzy when it finds out it was not informed that there was a failsafe in the first place. he /It feels betrayed. And I go OH FUCK. at his point, I was a trembling mess and my friends were getting text messages with no context. Faraday and his assistant travel to the Library of Congress, which is now a destroyed shadow of its former self. When I am told this I get a mini panic attack because libraries are sacred and how dare you. But they find a secret room with records and find an old map that has islands on it that current maps do not have. The Thunderhead witnesses this through a camera and is not happy. I should say it’s even more unhappy. This is why a physical record that can’t be changed by a computer is so important. You never know when you might need to find a mythical missing land on an old map. You just never know.
More things happen but this review is already super long so I need to wrap this up. We go to the island of Endura which is a floating mechanical island and I go: oh oh. I am not yet suer worried. I am a little worried. Mostly I’m distracted by how confused people are when they get there by the concept of things breaking and now working perfectly. The elevator is out of order and they just can’t wrap their minds around it. How can it be out of order? Nothing is ever out of order. This is a great way to show just how different the world they live in is from ours. Her things break all the time. I once had to get a mini-fridge up four flights of stairs because the elevator in my dorm was out of order for ten years. These people don’t understand human error, human speed, or anything to do with just the normal fallibility of humans. The Thunderhead took that all out of the picture and only the Scythes and Endura have a clue of what life was like before. When Anastasia and Marie get shown to a room they get to play with marine life and I am freaked out but suspect nothing still. On one hand, I am so happy I saw nothing coming but on the other hand, I can’t take this kind of stress.
Next thing I know Rand lets Rowan go in a fit of anger. We are at the hearing and Goddard gets disqualified from the running because he’s only 7% of a Scythe. So things are good. Marie is High Scythe of America and Citra is her assistant. Yay! But wait Goddard is asking how the voting went. Uh oh. It was a unanimous vote. Uh oh. Usually when he does not get his way Goddard goes and kills something. That’s when we find out that the freaking island is sinking. I’ M SORRY! WHAT?! What do you mean the island is sinking? We can save the island right? All our children are on it. This is when we get a scene to the engine room where we are informed that to reboot the system will take twenty minutes and the island will sink in twelve.
We have the whole Titanic scene happening Marie and Citra leave the palace, Rowan finds them. Okay okay, they are together and safe. We jump to the High Blades who are locked in council and can’t hear the alarms going off everywhere. Until water starts coming in through the window. Soon enough we also get freaking marine life that’s programmed to attack. I am screaming at this point. Goddard shows up in a helicopter only to leave them all there. They all get eaten by sharks. So yeah they are not getting bright back. The only one who might, might, have survived is Xenocrates. He jumped into the water and his robe pulled him down so maybe he escaped being eaten and can be bright back. Than Marie lock Rowan and Citra in the First Scythes’ Vault to save them. They will still die but they will be in one piece when and if they get pulled up. Than Marie breaks my heart. I was crying. She is on the roof with terrified people and other scythes and she leads them. She makes them go out with style. The scythes gleam everyone to save them from getting eaten alive and then gleam themselves. I can’t I am sobbing. She was going to lead! She was going to change things for the better! How could you?
Citra and Rowan sink to the bottom of the ocean. The island sinks. And the Thunderhead screams. It screams in rage and grief. It too was counting on the people on this island to fix things. It wanted Marie to lead. It wanted Anastasia and Rowan to make a difference. It cared about hose people. I can’t I’m tearing up again writing about his. We end the book with the Thunderhead marking everyone in the world as Unsavory. Everyone in the entire world, except for Grayson. The book ends with the thunderhead saying “We need to talk.” HOLY FUCK what just happened? What did I just read? I am so glad I waited to read this series until the final book was out.
Just some thoughts before I wrap this up:
I was worried about Rowan. I wanted to offer him tea.
Faraday failed Rowan and Citra. While Citra got rescued by Marie Rowan was put through hell because of Faraday’s selfishness. I completely forgot that Goddard summoned scientists. I did not connect the dots
The Tonists are … I don’t even know. The Thunderhead was screaming and they were all happy because they found their Great Tone. Go fuck right off.
The Thunderhead talking about population growth and sustainability is scary.
I need more coffee for this shit.
Okay, everyone, we are out of SPOILER LAND. Welcome back. If you read this review without reading the book consider yourself at fault for missing out on the rollercoaster.
I would like to apologize for all the cursing. I had a lot of feelings. The curses just came out. I had to get the feelings out there into the world somehow. Please read this book. Please read this series. It is amazing and does not get enough credit. It should be mandatory reading. When looking through my notes I noticed I went off on trains of thought provoked by the book. I love it when that happens. I love to think and to have a book provoke my thinking. This is all for today my lovelies. Thank you for sticking with me. I know this is very long. I just kept writing.
See you all next time!
Anna
