BOOK REVIEW - THE MAZE RUNNER by JAMES DASHNER

By: James Dashner
Published By : Chicken House
Released : Available Now
Details: Paperback , 371 Pages

RATING : 3.5 STARS!!

Book Blurb : Taken From Goodreads

When the doors of the lift crank open, the only thing Thomas remembers is his first name. But he's not alone. He's surrounded by boys who welcome him to the Glade - a walled encampment at the centre of a bizarre and terrible stone maze. Like Thomas, the Gladers don't know why or how they came to be there - or what's happened to the world outside. All they know is that every morning when the walls slide back, they will risk everything - even the Grievers, half-machine, half-animal horror that patrols its corridors, to find out.

BOOK REVIEW:



I am having mixed feelings about this book. The first ½ was really very good and kept me turning pages. I thought the concept of a maze and the boys all working together in The Glade on a daily basis was great, everybody had jobs, there was order. They dealt with rebellion severely for their ages, but it kept order. There was this mystery about The Box , the beetles that spied on the kids and running through The Maze was spiced up by having those deathly Grievers after you. As the reader you know that something is false about where they are. It’s like the Creators didn’t want them to get out, but then ....


I got a tad annoyed when Thomas came out of the box as nobody would tell him anything. He wanted to know, but nah we aren’t talking to you about it.


I really connected with Chuck, he was the one character I felt had a deeper personality, compared to the other characters. He was a bit of a prankster, but he was loyal, a good friend, he wore his emotions on his sleeve. I understand why there wasn’t a lot of depth to the characters as they had limited memory of their lives, due to the Creators.


Now those darn Creators are still a bit of a mystery to me. I know it’s about reading more in the next book, but I needed something in this book!


I was left quite unsatisfied with this first instalment in the Maze Runner series by the time I got to the end. I had a lot of questions about the plot as the story moved on.


The book on the back states ‘Liked The Hunger Games? Love This’....hmmmm for the first half of the book , yes... but then ....it went a bit wobbly for me personally.


I really enjoyed The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I got the concept of the ‘why’ of the children being in the game and why they had to do what they had to do to survive.... not so much in , ‘The Maze Runner’. I am left asking many questions..why? What was this place they were put into in the first place, I understand the inside of where they were, but what was the outside. There was a maze, The Glade, the homestead etc....but you don’t learn why for 2 years those that survived were there.... then .....time to go...if you can?


There is obviously this bigger picture as there are 2 more books in the series. I think I needed more understanding from this book. I know the Maze was designed with its variables etc to weed out the stronger children to be used for ???? It’s hinted at but still ????


If I compared it to ‘The Hunger Games’ and note I haven’t read Mockingjay , yet, but the first 2 books in series kept me very satisfied where plot was going, depth of characters, and the why, this book I was left quite baffled by the end of it. There’s a difference between a cliffhanger and WT!!!


The first half of this book moves along really well, I understand the characters are all boys , kids die, kids get banished, there are Grievers. I am not sure why the Grievers had to be such disgusting creatures that aimed to kill, but then the boys get the serum to help them. Why aim to kill them , then help them recover from the pain. I didn’t get the whole point of that. Sure it scared the crap out of them and only the runners went into The Maze, the other Gladers had their jobs to do to keep order. These Creators wanted kids killed off, but then you learn more about other stuff in the book and you think wouldn’t these healthy kids have been important to the population on Earth, it seemed wasteful.


The Box brings most things they request. Minho had a nice selection of running shoes for the runners. As the reader you feel like the world is modern with the types of things that they have in The Glade, electricity, kitchen, pens, pencils, paper, clothes, shoes, they asked for a t.v. ( didn’t get it )the meals are normal nice meals, they have pigs and cows.


By the time you get to the end of the book, there didn’t seem a point to the whole idea of The Maze. I understand what the reader is told. Killing children needs to have a purpose ( oh don’t I sound awful, but you know what I mean) , like Suzanne Collins made in The Hunger Games....I just didn’t get that from this first instalment.


There seemed pointless deaths that were not very nice. In one part a child is killed by using another child under the Creators mind mojo ...but why?


Grievers picked off kids, it felt too easy, surely they could have hidden better than sitting packed in together waiting for one of them to be snatched. It was this bizarre , let’s sit , and hope it’s not me, oh look it was David, phew it wasn’t me....


Now I get to the girl that came out of the box. Why? She was in a coma for 2/3rds of the book...I understand what she did, her part...but that was really it. Was she really needed? I would have preferred her to be up and running about in The Glade earlier on in the book instead of being in a coma?? It would have been more interesting, 1 girl amongst all these guys.


There was WICKED is good...FRUSTRATION is not...you got to read the book to understand this statement.


The first half of this book was quite a ‘cool’ story...but then I’m left rather confused and feeling a tad disorientated by the ending...I will read The Scorch Trials # 2 for my own sanity, I need to know more..... sorry James, maybe I am having a weird day.

Michelle