Review of James Dashner’s the Maze Runner

Summary

The Maze Runner is a young adult book about a boy named Thomas who wakes up in a place known as “The Glade” with no memories. He, along with other Gladers, work toward finding an exit out of The Glade by searching through a maze and battling past mechanical monsters they call “Grievers.”

Review

The Maze Runner wasn’t a fantastic read, but it wasn’t horrible, either. It took me a while to get into the story, but I actually ended up enjoying it.

Negatives

Let’s start with things I did not like. The made-up lingo the Gladers used just wasn’t quite realistic. Shuck” seemed to me like a substitute for another word that happens to rhyme with it and begins with the letter F. The Grievers also were not very realistic. They were mechanical yet had moist blubber? I just couldn’t picture it. And why did the boys assume that bad things were happening because of Thomas? I thought that that line of thinking was a bit of a stretch.
Spoiler Alert!
Another element of the book I didn’t care for was the maze runner himself. I had a difficult time connecting with Thomas, the main character. Perhaps this is because I am not a teenage boy, but I think that if I had felt a connection with Thomas, I would have gotten into the story a lot faster. Not only did I have a hard time connecting with him, though; I also had a hard time feeling connections between Thomas and other characters in the book. It was somewhat sad when Chuck died, but I certainly didn’t get teary-eyed. Teresa was supposed to be the love interest, but I really didn’t care too much about her, either.

Positives

To be fair, I did enjoy the book, and here is why: the ending! If you can make it through the beginning of the story, you will be rewarded in the end. I was interested to find out what was going to happen, so the story itself obviously had some weight. The Glade was an interesting world and there was enough drama to keep me reading. The drama definitely escalated at the end. I think the moment that I realized that I was enjoying the book was when Thomas entered the maze as the doors were closing. From there, the story intensified. Once the Gladers escaped from the Glade, everything went haywire and I had to find out what was going to happen to Thomas and his friends.

Overall Opinions

The Maze Runner was a good book, but not great. It had its problems, but in the end, I did feel compelled to buy the second book. In my opinion, that makes it a success!