The Maze Runner: Maze Runner, Book 1 Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B002SRC2PO | Format: PDF
The Maze Runner: Maze Runner, Book 1 Description
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 30 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.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 10 hours and 50 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Listening Library
- Audible.com Release Date: October 12, 2009
- Whispersync for Voice: Ready
- Language: English
- ASIN: B002SRC2PO
A hundred or so teenage boys, their memories wiped, are trapped in the center of a gigantic shifting maze, many miles across. As the book begins, Thomas arrives in the "Glade" -- the center of the maze, where they all live. The next day the first girl ever shows up too. And everything begins to change.
While living in the center of a giant ever-changing maze full of monsters is an extremely odd way to live, the boys have made do. After two years, they have a ruling council, they grow food, raise animals, and look after any sick or injured. They also send out trained runners to map the maze every day, in search of an exit, or a pattern, or some clue as to what they're doing here.
With the arrival of Thomas and the girl, the Gladers' carefully-crafted order begins to break down. Now solving and escaping the maze is immediately necessary. Fortunately, Thomas isn't quite like all the other Gladers, and is able to help.
The premise is great, and the plot moves well. There's a lot of action and the tension constantly builds. Unfortunately, the story failed in two important aspects for me.
First, the the maze itself is so absurd, the final explanation had better be pretty impressive for the story to hang together. And at least for me, the explanation was not plausible. Though, at least there *is* an explanation, which is more than can be said for some stories I've encountered!
The second weakness was the characters. I'd be okay with a somewhat implausible scenario if the characters were likable enough. But, Thomas is bland and whiny, and his only moments of greatness arise from his forgotten past. The other boys are mostly hostile and uninteresting. Not, mind you, that I expect deep, sophisticated personalities from amnesiac teenage boys!
After completing the Hunger Games trilogy, I was eager for another great YA dystopian read but did not find it in The Maze Runner. I was initially intrigued by the book's description. I knew there would be boys caught in a maze, with their memories wiped and little hope for escape, and I knew that the appearance of a girl on the scene would change everything. Mazes, games, riddles, and other sorts of non-traditional mysteries attract me, but Dashner's execution of his book did not.
The plot was ill-paced. At times it felt slow, because Dashner introduced the reader to the maze in the same way the main character, Thomas, was introduced to it: both the reader and Thomas learn almost everything through numerous secondary explanations by characters. In more skilled hands, this might be an effective way of immersing a reader in a fictional world. Dashner's exposition, however, felt cumbersome. As a reader, if I'm going to be told about a world rather than shown it, I'd better be told well. When I wasn't slogging through Dashner's writing, I was tumbling head-over-heels down its textual cliffs. Parts of the novel simply moved too quickly for any real character or plot development to occur. Readers are barely introduced to the main protagonist before being introduced to Teresa, the girl who supposedly changes everything. We really have very little sense for what's changing, because this inciting action comes so shortly after our encounter with Thomas.
The plot also felt as if it had been constructed with little forethought. Each step or twist in the plot seemed as if it were generated on the spot as the author wrote his way linearly through this novel. Shazam! Such and such happens out of the blue. A quick patch-up of missing explanation ensues. Shazam!
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