I am going to apologize right off the bat for the fact that I’m doing a review on the first and last book of the Arc of a Scythe series and not the middle book, however, I have to say that Thunderhead was relatively uneventful. The last 30 or so pages of that book were by far the best, and I don’t want to base an entire review off of the ending, where everything took place. Now, onto The Toll.
This book, despite the confusion I felt for a good chunk of it, was by far my favorite book out of the Arc of a Scythe trilogy. It had the most action, kept me the most engaged, and introduced a few new characters that I grew to love very quickly. It was fun and exciting and the least dreadful to get through out of all three books.
I’ll start off with the characters. We still get our favorites from the last two books; Scythe Faraday, Citra, and Rowan are all involved in The Toll. They’re written incredibly well, and although there isn’t a ton of development behind any of them, it isn’t really necessary. They are the three most consistent characters throughout the trilogy, and it was really nice to be able to see them in this last book.
There were at least new three characters of note introduced in this book, but the one I’ll touch on most is Jerico. Jerico is confirmed to be gender fluid; they are never assigned any set of pronouns, solely being referred to by their name throughout the duration of The Toll. Getting to follow Jerico through the story and getting to understand who they are as a character, even if it only was in one book, was really enjoyable, and I really loved the individual they turned out to be by the end.
The actual plot of The Toll could be difficult to follow at times. There would be points where the book would jump three years into the future before backtracking two years, which left me a bit confused as to when this book was taking place. Once the timeline evened out and became more stable, though, it all became very easy to understand. Perspectives would often jump back and forth, or it would stick on one set of events for 100 pages before going back to a separate set of events. It could be inconsistent, but with how much had to occur in order for the story to make sense, I really didn’t mind it. If you plan on reading it, though, it’s definitely something to be aware of.
Lastly, I’ll mention how the trilogy ended. Although I won’t go into detail as to what happened, I will say that I’m super pleased with how the story ended. It could be considered underwhelming, but I felt it was an appropriate ending considering everything that had happened. There were certain bits of information that could be touched on in a fourth book, but a lot of the unanswered questions feel appropriate. They don’t feel urgent or like I need answers, which is something I enjoy out of a book. I gave The Toll 5 stars out of 5, as it was the most action-packed and engaging novel in the trilogy. The characters were well written, the plot was fun to follow, and it was clear there was a lot of thought put into how this story would end. I’m happy I took on this trilogy, even though the last book came in at over 600 pages long (the longest book I’ve read in 2021). I thoroughly enjoyed this series, and would definitely recommend it to anyone who has enjoyed a dystopian series in the past.