Review | The Toll (Arc of a Scythe, #3) by Neal Shusterman | thought proving dystopia

“We are imperfect beings," Munira said.
"How could we ever fit in a perfect world?"

FORMAT READ: eBook

GENRE: Science Fiction (Dystopia), Young Adult Fantasy, *LGBTQ+ rep

PUBLISHER: Simon & Schuster

PUBLISHING DATE: November 5, 2019

READ DATE: August 21, 2020

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Shoutout to Bopeep and Emily who I buddy read with! It was so fun discussing with them and pushed me to finally procrastinate the last book in this series.

If you want to read this series for something, read it for THE PLOT. + ethical/moral commentary in a dystopia world

┈ overall thoughts ┈ 4.75/5

THIS WAS SUCH A WILD RIDE. Finishing this series was such a journey and I still have a hangover.

So I finished crying over the ending and now here we are. Quick summary: I'm amazed. I loved the angsty ending. I live on angst, it's my way of life.

“Not even the Thunderhead can be sure about tomorrow... Let’s be satisfied with today.”

-- mild spoilers ahead --

┈ themes: ★★★★★ ┈

I can’t talk about this series without mentioning the themes… again. As usual, Shusterman does not disappoint with all the morality commentaries. In this last book we get more of a look on how the Thunderhead itself views said morality... in it's own way.

But in this book specifically, it was the concept and discussions on time that got my attention a little bit more. In this world wherein people stopped marking numbers on years because it was simply no longer crucial to track. When that was taken away from them I like to believe that that was when they started to truly value what they had left.

“Time is never of the essence until someone decides that it is.”

It technically wasn’t a main focus of the book but it's basically the underlying point of everything: the fact that it presented how topics of racism and religious biases are still present in a dystopia that is deemed “perfect” and “problem-free”. But at the same time pointing out how stupid these biases are, proven by that one scene that said "maybe we should just glean short people too, I hate seeing them".

There were honestly so many underlying themes that went into the actual story and I'll probably reiterate this in a more sensical way after I get some sleep.

┈ plot: ★★★★★ ┈

I’ll never get over how interesting the dystopia system of this world is to me. The Thunderhead as this entity/overseer of everything is just so fascinating and well-written for a character that isn't a human being. The way that the Thunderhead's role played out in this book and the second book was really not something that I imagined, but still realistic. Which means ANGST.

I could probably make an essay of how perfectly written I think the Thunderhead is.

When I thought this book made me reach peak brain blast, it just keeps on going. All the commentaries and discussions were so well put out even the subtle ones and even though we never really got a solid solution to most of them... I think that was the point. As the Thunderhead would say: there is no perfect answer.

this book in particular doesn’t have a lot of fast-paced action scenes but my brain just never stops trying to process everything that is going on. And when action packed scenes happen... it gets chaotic, in the best way possible.

┈ characters: ★★★★★ (4.5) ┈

I just need to revel in the beauty of this quote for a moment:

“One of the benefits of being Madagascan is that we see people as people. When it comes to attraction, gender is never part of the equation.” Then Jeri looked up as the light dimmed slightly. “You see? The sun has passed behind a cloud again, and nothing has changed.”

something I only realized in this book with neal shusterman’s writing: characters are always described by who they are as a person more than their outward physical qualities (i.e. Jeri, Cirrus). He gives emphasis more on their thoughts and motivations which says a lot about what the book is really about. Which I love.

my buddies and I agreed that there were characters introduced in this book that if we met them in the first book, we probably would have even more head over heels in love with. I just have a little pet-peeve with romance being forced into sci-fi books but I'm willing to overlook all of that because I love the themes of this book that much more. And I'm not really mad about the romance interactions (it's not even given that much focus) because I just want them to be happy, living peacefully (view spoiler).

Not saying the characterization was bad because they weren't. and I was fully invested in all of them. I still hate Goddard with a burning passion but it's fine, we need an antagonist.

┈ world building: ★★★★★ ┈

It never stops building. that's all I can say.

┈ writing style: ★★★★★ ┈

SO BEAUTIFUL. from the in-between chapters to subtle hints underlying major plot points, every corner of each page was utilized to it's full extent in my opinion. I feel like my head is still running wild to even grasp everything that went down at this moment.

┈ page-turner: ★★★★★ ┈

Honestly, if you reached this part of my review that means this series interests you even a little bit and I see no reason for you not to. Personally, I was too curious to know what would happen to all my children (not children and they could probably glean me, no problem) that I want to protect from Goddard.

“Then, when the heavens were spent, the sun came out as it always did, and the Thunderhead got back to the solemn business of taking care of things."

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Thank you so much for reading!

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