Book Review: The Maze Runner

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

I first featured this series in a recent Book Haul I did. I had heard about this book series through various Internet sources, it often being compared to The Hunger Games trilogy.

There are no spoilers in this review.


So click below to READ ON!

This trilogy begins with “The Maze Runner.” The story revolves around the life of Thomas and it is set from his point of view. At the very beginning of the novel, Thomas finds himself without any memories, in a dark elevator, which is slowly moving up towards an unknown source of light above him.

He among many other boys of varying ages, are sent to an unknown territory: it consists of a field surrounded by a maze. The field, simple known as the Glade, is where the boys, called the Gladers, make their home. They grow their own vegetables, fruits, and raise their own animals; overall the Gladers function as their own society and adhere to the set rules in order to efficiently live. One group of Gladers, known as the Runners, have the daily task of running around the maze surrounding the Glade all day long; searching for a way out. However, they have to be sure to return by nightfall so that the monstrous-mechanical slug-like creatures called Grievers.

Once a month, on the same day every month, a new boy is sent through the dark elevator thing to join the Gladers.

The moment that sends the Gladers life into a tizzy is when, the very next day after Thomas arrives, the dark elevator buzzes again – motioning that there is another person on his way up; only that time it’s a girl. The first girl ever in the Glade. With her comes the message that “the End is coming” – and that’s the plot of The Maze Runner with no spoilers.

Overall, I liked this book. I didn’t 'really' like it, but I liked it. It follows a lot of the same themes as The Hunger Games, dystopian society and all, but I found it more difficult to get into, if you know what I mean. I don’t want to compare it wholly to The Hunger Games because they are two separate books by two different authors. The Maze Runner begins and ends with a lot of ambiguity, and leaves you with so many questions. It’s inevitable that I had to read the second novel in the trilogy, “The Scorch Trials.”

One thing that I didn’t particularly like about this book is that there is a lot of back and forth between characters and it can become quite confusing remembering who is who. Some of the characters don't play a crucial part in the plot but they're still mentioned from time to time so that can be a bit confusing and irrelevant. There was also not a great sense of character development with some of the more important characters – if there was, it was mostly repeats of the same kind of descriptions.

The Gladers also have their own slang that they have adopted over time which is so weird and foreign, but by the end of the book, it makes total sense. 

Sometimes this book frustrated me with how slow it progressed. But at other points in the story, I felt as if there wasn’t enough information given to the readers.

The one good thing I can say about this book series in general thought, or at least based on the first two novels, is that it gets better. I liked the second book more than the first and it took me less than half the time to read. If you are in the market for a series like The Hunger Games, I would recommend The Maze Runner trilogy, not because of the first book, but because the series really picks up and progresses with the second book. Does that make sense?

Give it a chance, I did

I’ll do a review of “The Scorch Trials” soon :)

Ciao for now

xoxoDarlingBuds