Book Review: The Maze Runner by James Dashner
After reading this Maze Runner book review, you’ll know exactly why everyone raves about this young adult dystopian book by James Dashner.
The Maze Runner is a popular young adult dystopian story filled with twists and turns. The story was further pushed into the limelight by a film adaptation from 20th Century Fox, and it made a big impression on the big screen.
The Maze Runner Summary
This story starts when Thomas arrives at the Glade in the box. Thomas has absolutely no memories about his past or who he is and is very confused by his surroundings, which is to be expected given that the Glade is occupied by a small group of teenage boys (no adults and no girls) and is enclosed within the confines of massive stone walls.
Thomas soon discovers that these boys are trapped in the Glade, which is surrounded by a huge maze, full of dangerous creatures called Grievers. Every day, the walls open, revealing the Maze and the Gladers send out ‘runners’ to try and figure out a way out of the Maze. The Gladers have already been trapped for two years but they still haven’t found a way out.
Why?
Because every night, once the stone walls close, the walls of the maze change. Escape seems futile. Every day is the same in the Glade, that is, until Thomas shows up, when everything starts to change. Ordinarily, only one new person arrives at the Glade a month, but the day after Thomas arrives, another person is delivered via the box. A girl.
A girl that recognises Thomas, no less.
Things are changing in the Glade, and it seems like the time to finally escape has come – but only if they can figure out the code – and their escape mission will not be easy.
The Maze Runner Book Review
Although The Maze Runner is written in the third person, it follows Thomas as he tries to figure out what the hell is going on – what happened to him (and the other boys), where they are and what their purpose is. I didn’t connect as much with Thomas as I expected to, but he is definitely a strong male lead and a great character to read about.
Not all of the characters in the story like Thomas, and I think that feeling rubbed off slightly on me as there were times when I questioned whether I really trusted him.
With so many characters with little to no memory of who they are and where they’ve come from, it can be a little difficult to figure out which characters to trust, and the success of this story is probably down to the huge amount of suspense that the reader feels.
It is not until the very end of the story that anything really becomes clear and when it does, you kinda wish you hadn’t found out what’s really going on.
Dashner has created a unique and terrifying world which will probably haunt me in my dreams tonight.
It’s a story similar to The Hunger Games, as you’ve got a group of young kids fighting for survival against what they assume is a system that adults created to test them. Why they are being tested, they have no idea.
The difference is, however, these kids are working as a group to try to survive, so themes of friendship and how a society should function are important.
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Although all the main characters are children, if their age was never mentioned, I could very well believe that this was a tale for adults. This is classified as a YA novel, however, there is nothing remotely ‘childish’ about this book.
This is a serious tale of survival and I have to be honest, Dashner’s imagination frightens me.
There isn’t much romance in The Maze Runner, but you can see that there is something developing between Thomas and Teresa, the only girl in the camp. There are some nice moments between these two, but this definitely isn’t one of the main plot points. I look forward to this blossoming in future books!
I am a big fan of romance in YA books, but in this case, I didn’t really care that there wasn’t all that much of it because there was so much going on in terms of friendships and the developing ties between different characters.
All in all, The Maze Runner is definitely up there with top YA dystopia novels such as The Hunger Games and The 5th Wave, and if you haven’t read it yet, then you absolutely must pick up a copy.
The cliffhanger at the end of The Maze Runner makes sure that readers will want to pick up the next book, and I cannot wait to see how the plot develops from here.
I absolutely tore through this book and finished it in no time, desperate to find out what was going on. Dashner has now been added to my list of favourite authors, and I would give this story 5 stars simply for the terrifying world that Dashner has created.
The Maze Runner is available on Amazon here
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I read the whole series a few years ago and I really hated it… I thought it was messy, most of the characters were not really likable and it was just quite complicated, even though the first book was actually better than the rest. As for the movies, it’s quite the same for me. The first one is good, but then it goes way too far, become to complicated and as you said, it’s hard to know who you can trust …
Oh no! I really enjoyed the book and film when I first read/watched them Movies never live up to expectations set by the book though, this one included!
You know what I’m like Laura lol – Ive seen the movie but haven’t read the book (yet).
Thanks for hosting this :D
Charlotte x
This book looks like a great read. I will look out for it so I can download it to my kindle.
I loved the movie and would like to read a book too as I was told it’s much better.
I’m more of a film girl than books these days, but I find book adaptations to be mostly good.
Sounds interesting and my kind of book – I’ll have to keep an eye out for the film too – I guess it will be on DVD soon.