Book Review of 'The Maze Runner' by James Dashner

Premise:

If you ain't scared, you ain't human.

When Thomas wakes up in a lift, the only thing he can remember is his name. He's surrounded by strangers - boys whose memories are also gone.

Nice to meet ya, shank. Welcome to the Glade.

Outside the towering stone walls that surround the Glade is a limitless, ever-changing maze. It's the only way out - and no one's ever made it through alive.

Everything is going to change.

Then a girl arrives. The first girl ever. And the message she delivers is terrifying.

Remember. Survive. Run.

Review:

You’ve probably heard of the Maze Runner, considering it’s a well known novel. In fact, it's up there with all the other popular series’. 

[see: Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, the Hunger Games, Divergent, the Mortal Instruments, etc.] 

(That is subjective, of course)

This has been on my tbr list for a while, and I finally got the chance to read it. Here’s what I thought!

Writing Quality/Style: On the positive side, Dashner’s writing is mostly straightforward, simple, and not too heavy, which was enjoyable. The whole text is mostly written with easy vocabulary which I guess makes sense since most of the characters are all teenagers. 

Something annoying, though, is that thing happens when the dialogue lasts so long that you have to flip back a couple pages to keep track of who’s talking. Don’t you hate it when that happens? Oh, good, so I’m not the only one.

Worldbuilding: For this particular book, this category is different than in most novels since most of the plot takes place inside the Glade, secluded from the rest of the world, so there really isn’t a lot of world to build on. But the worldbuilding done on the Glade was okay. It was described very carefully in the beginning of the novel, when Thomas is first introduced to the place. 

However, the description of it was really dense (that’s one of the few places, I think, where the writing wasn’t simple and straightforward). Besides that description and the description of the maze and its walls, there’s not much else. Perhaps in the next book… 

Character Development/Complexity: I’m a bit disappointed here. Most of the characters were 2D. Actually, the only characters who I felt had any complexity to them was Newt (second in command of the Gladers), Minho (the leader of the Runners, who are Gladers who risk their lives in the maze, trying to find a way to escape), and… that’s it. Even Thomas was a bit lacking in depth, but it might be because he had no memory of the past. Honestly though, all of the Gladers didn’t have their memory, so Thomas doesn’t really have that excuse. 

Hopefully there will be more to him in the following books, especially since I’m anticipating flashbacks/reveals of his past. As for character development, there was none, but again, it might appear in later books. 

So obviously Newt and Minho were my favorite characters. 

“Shouldn’t someone give a pep talk or something?” Minho asked.
“Go ahead,” Newt replied.
“Be careful,” he said dryly. “Don’t die.”
“Great. We’re all bloody inspired,” Newt answered.

~Minho’s pep talk which then became one of the most iconic (& my favorite) lines in the book~

Plot twists: This is always hard to talk about without revealing spoilers, but especially so in this book, so my comments might seem a bit vague. I feel like there weren’t a lot of plot twists in this book that I didn’t see coming, so if you’re looking for a very twisty story, this might not be the book for you. Then again, parts of the story had been spoiled for me, so I might have been more surprised if I didn’t know what was going to happen.

For example, a character dies in the book (not going to say who, don’t worry), and I knew who it was, so it had less of an impact on me, and I didn’t really have much of an attachment to that character since I already knew they were going to die.

Plot: The plot is mostly propelled with that technique where other characters are pointlessly withholding information. When there’s no point to it, the story loses its suspense. Let me explain: In the beginning, Thomas is constantly asking questions. Reasonable and understandable, considering he has no memory of his life before reaching the Glade, right? And yet, every other character he meets constantly refuses to answer his questions. He gets frustrated (and so does the reader). Also, I had found a couple plot holes so…

Intrigue: The first couple chapters of the story are pretty slow and boring, which is unfortunate, considering the beginning of any story is supposed to hook the reader in. 

In fact, the first half of the story seems pretty slow, and then a ✨plot twist✨ occurs which speeds up the pace a bit and there’s more of a sense of urgency. 

The book as a whole wasn’t extremely boring, but it wasn’t on-the-edge-of-your-seat exciting, or even can’t-put-it-down interesting. 

This was overall an okay book. I think I might have liked it more if the plot twists had more of an impact, but it might just be because a few parts of the story were already spoiled for me, so yeah. I do recommend this book, but mostly to people who enjoy the dystopian genre. 

This plot-driven novel is for ages 12-17. I would rate this book 3 out of 5 stars.

⭐⭐⭐

~ Candria 

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