The Maze Runner Book Review by Katia

The Maze Runner Book Review

The Maze Runner is the first book in the best-selling series written by James Dashner  followed by: The Scorch Trials, The Death Cure and lastly The Kill Order. The Maze Runner is a detailed and interesting book that was published by Dell publishing on the 6th of October 2009. The Maze Runner was then turned into a movie in 2014 and the Scorch Trials in 2015.

The Maze Runner tells the thrilling story of a group of boys, but not just any ordinary boys, they are extremely intelligent and where stolen by a top secret ‘agency’ when they were very young. The agency is called WICKED and is the acronym for World In Catastrophe Killzone Experiment Department. They were stolen from their family and friends and their homes and placed in what they called the Glade. Before they were put into the Glade the boys’ brains were altered and all they were able to remember was their first name. Along with many buildings and places to go in the Glade the most important thing was the entrance to maze. Every day 8 runners go into the maze and search for an exit. But for a whole 2 years they had no luck. Every week supplies would show up to keep the boys alive and every month a new Glader would show up. Every night the doors to the maze entrance would close to save the Gladers from the terrible and indescribable monsters called Grievers. If your are stung by a griever you will go through ‘the changing’ and if you survive you will never be yourself again.

Then one day just as usual another boy arrived his name was Thomas. Thomas accepted that he was in the Glade much quicker than most but had the unnatural urge to become a runner. The next day unusually another person arrived at the Glade but even more strangely this person was a girl. Before falling into a coma the girl said that everything is going to change. Not long after, even though she was in a coma, the girl began talking to Thomas telepathically and then everything started falling apart. Once the girl had awoken from her coma the doors stopped closing giving the grievers an entrance into the Glade, the weekly supplies no longer came and the sky was always grey, and still try as they might there was just no exit.  But then Thomas begins to realise that maybe the maze isn’t quite that but the whole Glade was perhaps all a test.

Throughout the book you see the characters change and develop new skills and friendships. Some characters grow in strength while some grow weaker. It is interesting to see the way the characters act when put in certain situations and the way they mature and develop trust for each other.

James Dashner uses a wide variety of interesting and alluring vocabulary to captivate and grab people's attention. Along with being captivating and intriguing the vocabulary is very powerful and brings you into an incredible atmosphere and paints a picture in your head.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and found it amazingly amusing although that does not mean the book is for everyone. I would recommend this book to adventure seeking kids ages 12-16. It would be a great book for children that like reading descriptive, suspenseful, and compelling stories.

By Katia