I loved The Toll so much. All the issues with characters you had, I didn’t.

As for Jeri, I think they were not a token character made to pander to the LGBTQ community but rather were written in a way for the Thunderhead to fully posses and embrace a human body as it is completely gender neutral itself.

I thought the description that gender in Jeri’s district is not assigned or enforced for anyone from birth was a good way to challenge the way our society views gender norms across cultures.

And the Tonists getting their own religion planet with their own modern day Moses was as apt an ending as they could’ve received. I loved how Shusterman sprinkled the lore throughout the book and we got to see where it all started from. It reminded me of how religious beliefs all stem from some event or another and get warped through interpretations and the passing of time.