The Maze Runner

     I have been excited to read The Maze Runner by James Dashner for a while now, despite being a little worn down with an over-saturation of young adult dystopians in the current market. But I suppose that isn't the book's fault. I digress.

     It begins with Thomas being thrown into the midst of a make-shift, enclosed society run and inhabited only by teenage boys like himself. Every day, the walls around them open to reveal the opening of a giant maze that seems impossible to solve. A few of the boys are tasked with being "Maze Runners" and spend the daylight hours desperately trying to find patterns that could lead to a solution. At night, the doors close, the inner walls change, and terrifying monsters fill the maze. That's exciting enough, but Thomas' arrival has sparked changes in nearly everything - pushing the need to solve the maze from a daily job to the urgency of life or death.

Photo from Amazon.com

     My favorite part of the book is the brilliant world Dashner has imagined. It was a wonderful combination of creepy and intriguing. The closing of each chapter made me keep reading. When one question was finally answered, three more were raised. It was quite a gripping read. And I think/hope it will be a great movie as well!

     I also appreciated that even though the arrival of Thomas started a domino effect of rule changes for this strange world, Dashner made sure that the other characters were proactively involved in the conflict. I was really worried that this would be a "waiting for the chosen one to save the day" situation (which I will be honest, sometimes it flirted with) but thankfully the other characters were intelligent and useful too! Yay!

    The few things I struggled with while reading were the writing style and the shallow characters. BUT I don't want to be misunderstood - I think this can be explained by Dashner tailoring his style to his reader's target age group (around middle school, I would think) rather than him being a bad writer. I just found myself sifting through repetition or cliches while wanting to see rather than be told what a character was feeling. By the end of the book I really didn't feel very connected to the characters, but I very badly wanted to know more about them (looking at you, Newt and Minho)!

     If you're looking for a quick read packed with action, I'd say go for it! I really enjoyed the first installment and am currently on the second thrill ride that is The Scorch Trials.