The Toll by Neal Shusterman

This is the final instalment to the Arc of the Scythe trilogy. I quite enjoyed this Young Adult trilogy. I feel like in some aspects it’s not that objectively good, but it was entertaining. I do not think I would recommend it to most people though given how dense these books got at times. It’s hard to describe why I liked them so much in some ways.

I think there are some interesting and entertaining ideas. I liked the cast of characters which involved mostly equal split of women and men. There is even a non-binary character in this one. I’ve found the character development relatively good for books mostly centred on world building, ethics, and action. I have to say that with the expanded universe and cast of characters, Citra and Roman are not really developed in this book. Maybe it’s because their development seems to have been mostly finished in the last book. I felt Roman should have had more development time in this. I missed Faraday as well.

All the books in this series are long and this was one was over 600 pages. The author adds a lot of details and it all comes together by the end which is satisfying. I do feel that some things were padded. Too many characters and time spent on plots here and there.

The first book in this series is being adapted to a movie. I do think it is better than Hunger Games and some other YA novels, but I can’t see how they can adapt it easily. There is a lot of violence in these books. I also feel most of these characters have deep internal lives and motivations that would not be easy to translate on to the screen given the world building.

I am glad to have read and finished this trilogy. While the books are long and padded, I don’t feel like it was dragged out. I enjoyed this series.

Read March 1-5, 2020.

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