Parent reviews for The Toll: Arc of a Scythe, Book 3

This fantastic series developed in complexity and avoided many of the pitfalls of other dystopian sci-fi for younger readers. Shusterman continues to build a collection of diverse and complicated characters who find themselves in the Thunderhead's complicated series of plans to save humanity from its worse characteristics. Shusterman looks further into how religion shapes history, and how apocryphal stories find their way into shaping present understandings of confusing past events. So, this book moves quite far away from the shocking fun of learning about this new 'perfect world' and its Scythes, but it is entirely coherent and clever and provocative as all good sci-fi . Scythes Anastasia and Lucifer are much more fringe to the story with so many working parts. Some will find this disappointing, but the new characters, political intrigue, and seeing how everything comes together make this big read worth your time.