e-Audio, 11:54:55
Narrated by: Neal Shusterman, Megan Tusing, Greg Tremblay, Nicky Endres, Jarrod Shusterman, & Fiona Hardingham
Release Date: November 1, 2022
Published by: Simon & Schuster Audio
Read from: November 10-14, 2022
Arc of a Scythe, #3.5
Source: The Publisher (I received the audio copy of this book from the Publisher in exchange for a just and honest review. This did nothing to influence my review.)
TW: Death, Animal Death (and Revival)
For Readers Interested In: Dystopian, YA, AnthologiesThe New York Times bestselling Arc of the Scythe series continues with thrilling stories that span the timeline. Storylines continue. Origin stories are revealed. And new Scythes emerge!
There are still countless tales of the Scythedom to tell. Centuries passed between the Thunderhead cradling humanity and Scythe Goddard trying to turn it upside down. For years humans lived in a world without hunger, disease, or death with Scythes as the living instruments of population control.
Neal Shusterman—along with collaborators David Yoon, Jarrod Shusterman, Sofía Lapuente, Michael H. Payne, Michelle Knowlden, and Joelle Shusterman—returns to the world throughout the timeline of the Arc of a Scythe series. Discover secrets and histories of characters you’ve followed for three volumes and meet new heroes, new foes, and some figures in between.
Gleanings shows just how expansive, terrifying, and thrilling the world that began with the Printz Honor–winning Scythe truly is.
*MY THOUGHTS*
I always hate reviewing anthologies because there’s always some I like and some I didn’t. I never know how to review them because I don’t want to do it individually but I also sometimes feel like I have to. But if I have some intense reactions, I know that’s the one I know that I need to at least mention lol So, that’s what I’ve decided will be right for his one!
There were some I really, really liked, like A Death of Many Colours. I loved it because it kind of mirrored what’s happening today. The conspiracy theorists that didn’t believe in Scythes. They all got some up close and personal time with a Scythe. It’s what it sounds like when people still think the election was stolen. (Newsflash: It wasn’t) “Let’s give you a new perspective.” I liked this one becuase I don’t remember much about the unsavories from the original series. Which also kind of made me upset because after this I wanted to know more about them. At least in this story we get an up close and personal story about it. There was also the one where Curie took care of business on the last World Leader that was left. She wanted nothing more than to make sure they didn’t threaten the continued rise of the Thunderhead. The only thing I thought of after that story was “DAMN.”
The stories I didn’t like weren’t bad, so much as weird. Never Work With Animals was one of those stories lol And I don’t mean weird in a good way. I spent the majority of the story asking myself, “WTF?!” This was the same reaction I had about the one with the art. I still don’t understand the purose of that one. The writing style one of the authors just doesn’t work for me. And I’m glad that I was listening to the audio, because if I was reading the actual book, I think I would have DNF’ed it before I tried reading it.
I also thought this was kind of a weird way to do this? Like people were writing stories in your story’s world? Is this like bound fanfiction? lol I thought this was going to be an anthology, all written by Neal Shusterman, but it’s by a lot of different authors. Yes one of them is his son, Jarrod, but it still felt weird to me. But weird as it was, I still enjoyed being back in the Scythedom, and if this is the only way I can get books in my favorite series, I will take them all the time.
I wasn’t going to put this in the review since there was so many of them, but the narration was really good. All of them had the right inflections and tone. And it was even cooler because the author was one of them. (I always love that lol) I also loved how it was a full cast. And even within that story, everyone’s voices had distinctive voices. The audio production was wonderful.
Anthologies are always so weird. Especially if it’s a book that’s set in a series world that you’ve loved before. But it’s written by other authors. It sounds crazy, but I think it worked well with this one. Maybe Neal Shusterman didn’t have anything else to say about the story, but whatever the case may be, I’m just glad he visited it again at all.
Overall, I give this
