The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Title: The Maze Runner
Author: James Dashner
Publisher: Chicken House
Published: August 4, 2011
ISBN: 978-1908435132
Genre: Dystopian/Sci-Fi

If you ain’t scared, you ain’t human.
When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his name. He’s surrounded by strangers—boys whose memories are also gone.
Nice to meet ya, shank. Welcome to the Glade.
Outside the towering stone walls that surround the Glade is a limitless, ever-changing maze. It’s the only way out—and no one’s ever made it through alive.
Everything is going to change.
Then a girl arrives. The first girl ever. And the message she delivers is terrifying.
Remember. Survive. Run.

Rating: ★★★☆☆


This book was disappointing.

No.

Not disappointing.

Underwhelming.

This book could have easily been a five star read but fell woefully short.

The plot of this book is incredible: young boys have their memories wiped and are then forced to live in the middle of a mysterious maze and then have to work together to find their way out. It is original and exciting. Even the contrived slang used by the Gladers didn't bother me all that much.

The pacing and structure of the book is also good. It never felt like it was going too slow or too fast. There was never a lack of suspense or action. This wasn't a book that I couldn't put down but I did find myself going back to it a lot. I would read it in burst: read for an hour, leave it alone for twenty minutes. But I still always went back. It definitely has that going for it.

The characters. Oh! The characters. Thomas pissed me off. I've heard a lot of people say that his constant question asking pissed them off. I'm going to go against the grain and say that it actually felt completely natural and did not piss me off at all. The guy had his memory wiped and was then dumped into the middle of some big-ass mysterious maze; I'm pretty sure he's entitled to ask as many questions as he wants. I'd be concerned if he wasn't asking questions. What pissed me off about him was how much he let the others walk all over him. Every time Alby, Newt or Minho told him to shut up and bugger off, he did. I mean, seriously? You just woke up in a maze with amnesia and you're going to let people fob off your questions? As if.

Newt and Minho, however, are the lights of my life. I can't remember the last time I connected to characters in this way. By three-quarters of the way into the book I just wanted every scene to feature on or the other, or both. Actually, I wish they were the main characters of this series. Gah! Love them. I hope I get to see plenty of them in the remaining books.

This could have been truly brilliant but there is something fundamentally lacking in the execution. I couldn't justify more than three starts, as much as I wanted to give it more.

On that note, I will definitely be reading the other books in this series because Newt and Minho. That is all.