Tuesday 18 June 2013

The Maze Runner - James Dashner (2009)

3 stars

I'd heard so much about this book and knew it was becoming a movie next year so I thought I'd read it and see if it was worth all the hype, I was a bit disappointed.

I think the best part of the book was the last fifty or so pages when they actually (finally) tried to escape the maze. Up until that point I thought it was a lot of build up and background information that is probably going to be helpful in the later books in the series, but was probably the main reason it took me so long to get through it. The end of the book was also where I really got invested in the storyline and it made me want to buy the next two, although I hope they give me more answers than this book did. My favourite character was Minho, I thought he was smart and nice and I hope he survives the rest of the trials. I would recommend this book to any dystopia fans, especially fans of The Hunger Games because I can see a lot of parallels and similarites between the two series.


Thomas wakes up in the Glade with no memories, only knowing his name. He learns that every month a new boy is put in the Glade and they have no way of getting out as they are surrounded by a giant maze that is filled with grievers, evil robotic creatures that can sting and kill people. Thomas learns the ways of the Gladers and almost immediately realizes he wants to be a "runner" someone whose job is to run the maze every day and look for an exit or a change. The second day he's there, a girl comes out of the box saying that she's the last one, everything will change. Thomas realizes that he knows the girl, Teresa, and thinks they were lovers in the past. Together they work out that the maze is a code and is repeating six words over and over, Thomas also decides to get stung by a griever so he can have memories and once he does he remembers how to get out. The other Gladers have to fend off grievers as he, Teresa and Chuck jump through the griever hole to type the code the maze was spelling out into a computer that shuts down the grievers. Once they've done that about 20 boys are left, and then as the leader of the operation they were part of is talking to them she is assassinated and they are taken to a building just outside of the "scorch" and told that they will be able to cure the disease that is plaguing the world. The epilogue is a letter from the leader of WICKED saying that all things are for a purpose and test group A results were very promising and her fake assassination and the groups capture was showing very good results, the next trials will show who their leader will be.

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