Book Review: The Maze Runner

The first book in the New York Times bestselling Maze Runner series—The Maze Runner is a modern classic, perfect for fans of The Hunger Games and Divergent.When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his first name. His memory is blank. But he’s not alone. When the lift’s doors open, Thomas finds himself surrounded by kids who welcome him to the Glade—a large, open expanse surrounded by stone walls. Just like Thomas, the Gladers don’t know why or how they got to the Glade. All they know is that every morning the stone doors to the maze that surrounds them have opened. Every night they’ve closed tight. And every thirty days a new boy has been delivered in the lift. Thomas was expected. But the next day, a girl is sent up—the first girl to ever arrive in the Glade. And more surprising yet is the message she delivers. Thomas might be more important than he could ever guess. If only he could unlock the dark secrets buried within his mind.

I bought this book about a year ago and I just reread it because I loved it so much. The first time I saw this book was in English class a little more than a year ago. The librarian at school had brought a cart full of new books to our classroom and I thought it looked rather interesting and would have read it then if not for this girl who beat me to it.

About a month later, the librarian at my school asked me if I’d read The Maze Runner and I told her I hadn’t but I’d heard of it and she said she recommended it for fans of The Hunger Games, which is one of my all time favorite series.
A week later, I went to Barnes and Noble (happiest place in the world) and bought this. Four days later, I bought the rest of the series at the book fair.

And haven’t regretted any of the purchases. So that’s the story of how I came across this book.

The book cover and title are perfect-the story centers around Thomas, who becomes a ‘maze runner’, someone whose job is to run the the maze everyday to try to find the way out. The color scheme of the cover art works well to create a mysterious and slightly intimidating mood that embodies the story well.

The Maze Runner is a futuristic survival-adventure-dystopian novel. The great thing about this book is that I feel that it’s a good read for both genders. It’s not particularly marketed towards one gender as lots of YA books these days are (ok, maybe it leans a teeny bit towards the male side).

The plot is planned out really well, perhaps the best I’ve seen. It’s one of those books where everything is kind of hazy and you’re not really sure what’s going on but yet you still feel compelled to stick with it to see what happens and later on it all starts to make sense and it’s just so worth it and you’ll be so happy you stuck around.

I’ll admit that the pacing of the book is a little strange. Teresa, who is a really crucial character and one of the two protagonists, is only really introduced somewhere around page two-hundred something after she wakes up from a coma. I wish she’d been introduced maybe a hundred pages earlier because until she woke up, the action was pretty much nada.

After Teresa wakes up though, the action really truly begins and it gets really intense.

The only way to truly describe it to compare the action to a sled ride down a hill. Starts off fairly slow, then suddenly you speed down the rest of the hill, screaming in delight (but probably also partially fear), and then before you know it, it’s over and you want to do it again and again and again.

The characters are fantastic-a cast of very different and realistic characters, some of which I came to love and some which I came to despise. The character development is definitely one of the best that I’ve seen. They just all grow so much as people and they’re all flawed in different ways and they have great backstories which are eventually revealed but not really in this book (hehehemwahaha) and I live for the backstories and flashbacks which are really truly the best.

Everyone in this book is just so believable and you really get a feel of what kind of person each character is and it’s really great to see them grow in different aspects throughout the novel.

I’d recommend this to just about everyone who loves a good dystopian, adventure, or even mystery read. I really think just about everyone would like this. It’s a brilliant and well written book that I promise you will fall in love with.

If you do decide to read it though, be warned, it ends with a super-mega cliffhanger. Be prepared to run to the closest bookstore to buy the next book. Or maybe the next three. (there’s a prequel!)

the look of desperation on my face after finishing this book