The Toll

By: Neal Shusterman

Narrated by: Greg Tremblay

Length: 15 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's Summary

In the highly anticipated finale to the New York Times best-selling trilogy, dictators, prophets, and tensions rise. In a world that’s conquered death, will humanity finally be torn asunder by the immortal beings it created? 

Citra and Rowan have disappeared. Endura is gone. It seems like nothing stands between Scythe Goddard and absolute dominion over the world scythedom. With the silence of the Thunderhead and the reverberations of the Great Resonance still shaking the earth to its core, the question remains: Is there anyone left who can stop him? 

The answer lies in the Tone, the Toll, and the Thunder. 

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.  

©2019 Neal Shusterman (P)2019 Audible, Inc.

A lot for one book.

Arc of a Scythe's first two books kept me entranced. The story combined with the narrator's acting actually made me feel how tense some of the moments were meant to be. The Toll, seems a little all over the place..almost like the author couldn't decide which direction he wanted to go. Neal jumped around in to many different time periods, and tried to wrap up side plots. There was a lot of build up through out the story, and the pay off was...lack luster. Coming to an abrupt conclusion.

This book introduced a lot of new characters, and put the original main cast of characters in a back seat role. To me this made the story feel more shallow than anything. It hinted at the adventures of Rowan and Citra and brought focus back to them just long enough to make sure they were still relevant enough for the end of the story. Other moments in the story, the author has the point of view bouncing back and forth constantly, making it difficult to keep track of who is who. It also doesn't get any easier when every character goes by at least two names.

This book also takes time to pander to certain crowds. One character in particular had minimal impact on the story, and was obviously used for pandering., Neal spends quite a bit of time being in your face about their upbringing and life choices. As another review has said, this information did nothing to progress the story.

Disappointingly, this audio book comes with a PDF, and Audible is very upfront that there is a PDF to accompany this book, and in my excitement on this book's release, I opened it. It was pretty much spoilers. DO NOT OPEN THE PDF if you have not read/listened to the book. Luckily my friend and I pieced together what might have happened and it wasn't a big surprise.

Surprisingly dull

I'm quite surprised at how dull this story is. The pacing slows to a crawl and more than half of the book is just characters interacting with one another without anything really happening. When things finally start moving, it jumps around too much and some of the content feels like filler with little purpose or significance to the story. I started tuning out because the content felt pointless to keep up with. Once again, our main couple spends 95% of the time apart doing their own thing, yet somehow we're supposed to believe there is some great binding love between them. Anastasia is somehow even more one dimensional and flat in this installment. After reading the last book, I was expecting more.

Had Potential but Didn't Deliver

5 stars for the narration, 3 stars for the story.

The second book had built such a great setting for the third book. We had a mysterious island unbeknownst to the Thunderhead, an unstoppable villain, and two heroes that would come back and surprise the world by avenging all that was lost. This could have been an amazing, action-packed mystery thriller, but instead the storyline was rather lackluster. We received some nice character development between the Toll and the Thunderhead, but not with the scythes. In fact, the main scythes were rather passive and non-confrontational, which became very clear in the ending. This book had so much potential and it's a bit disappointing that the series wrapped up this way.

DONT OPEN THE PDF UNTIL YOU FINKSH

It contains a spoiler! I don’t know what audible is thinking! Do not make the same mistake I did.

Out Like the Thunder

Overall, this was a great series! So many nuance issues that people could spark conversations over the possibilities. Very centric on life/death and the value of living. It's a series to make the readers think beyond and hopefully revel in their own mortality.

There were some parts that were too woke and made it feel a little heavy-handed. Beyond those, quite a wonderful trilogy. One of my favs.

Not as good as others

This book concludes this story. It is different, not as good as other two but I wanted to know what happened so kept listening.

I dunno..

I was super excited for this book. But like the others were saying, the ending seemed rushed and not what I was expecting. There were parts that were confusing, side stories that didn't need to be there. parts that should have been explained better- weren't. Plus trying to keep track with the time travel jumps and trying to figure out where/when everyone was, was honestly exhausting. Overall, it was a let down. I loved this series, but I just didn't want a book that centered mostly around Greyson With Citra and Rowan being the back-drop as they were the most interesting of characters.

preachy / poor ending

the author got all wrapped up in "wokeness" and couldn't help but preach and preach. worse, though, he painted himself into a happy corner, determined to wrap everything up with a bow, delivered a snooze ending with very little bang for the buck.

Should have ended the series with book 2.

Decent book to finish out the series. Everyone gets the ending they "deserve" but ending is anticlimactic.

This is just the perfect ending!

I have so many comments about the whole saga and its powerful allusions, but those will be shared on a different post on my blog.

I must be honest that while I was reaching the end of the book I was pacing like a caged animal. The stress, the pressure, the crumbling of events were too charged with anxiety. The Toll is all I was expecting from these finaly.

We start with a boom and we end it with a boom. It was quite a struggle and I felt so much annoyance and almost hate towards one character. It is incredible and sad how the human species will corrupt anything they have access to, power is corruption and corrupts everything, and at the end everything fell under its own weight.

I knew by the 38% of the book how it was going to end and I even post it on a group discussion here to leave records that I knew, and I read sceptical about it, and I was going to be so disappointed if I was going to he right. Although I was right, Neal turn things around one more time to give proper closure to the saga.

Totally satisfied! Incredible happy and so different and unique as it could be. Welcome to the top 5 books of my year!!

A total mess, and completely dull ending

I was really excited to listen to this book. In fact it was on of the books I was most looking forward to this year.
Unfortunately it has just been a total mess from beginning to end. It seems to be plagued with pointless characters and unnecessary and obnoxious pandering.

All I wanted was more Rowan and more Citra...

An exellent end to the series

I am going to have to listen to this series of books over and over again. The writing is imaginative, serious and in places amusing. The storyline is complex yet leaves you wanting more.

The Toll is a fitting ending to the series and brought together so much from the first two books. I wonder if there is a prequal in the pipework as some in depth history for Faraday and the Thunderhead would be something I would love to hear.

Neil Shusterman is an excellent author and Greg Tremblay a brilliant narrator who gave depth and life to all the characters.

A new favourite trilogy

I'm not crying 😭
What a fantastic end to this fantastic trilogy.
My heart still hurts from the ending of book 2 and this has both healed me and broke me. Not a dull moment or character.

great end to a trilogy

very good book with a good voice actor worth a read and a 're read

The Toll

I personally was satisfied with the ending of this series. It was a rollercoaster ride with a slow build up, but when the plot moves it move fast to almost to the very end, until it gives you a chance to breath and settle down. it was great

Eagerly awaited, but not as good as first 2 parts

The positive first, there is a third part, there is nothing worse than listening to two parts of a trilogy and then the third never materialises. So I am glad, that this was not the case.

And it was not totally bad, just not as good as the first two books had lead me to hope.

The story meanders and too many new characters are introduced, the story does not follow a strict timeline, but there is a lot of foreshadowing I found not gripping but annoying.

Amazing

Amazing book after listening to all three of these I am going to buy them in physical form to put on my shelf deffinatley reccomend

didnt enjoy it as much as the other ones

I didnt enjoy this as much as I'd hoped. I really struggled to finished it, not like the thunderhead. it felt like 5 books in one and I couldn't really follow, all the different characters really didnt help. The only satisfying thing was the ending.

Even if I didnt enjoy it, I wouldn't tell anyone to not continue after the second book. Give it a shot and you might enjoy it more than me. I don't regret finishing the trilogy mostly because the ending was as good as it was.

Wow

Fast become my favourite series, all I can say is wow what a ride that was

I felt it needed one more book in the series

It is a brilliant entry in the series but the ending felt rushed and would have benefited for one more book in the series to flesh out the story.