The Maze Runner Author: Visit Amazon's James Dashner Page | Language: English | ISBN:
0385737955 | Format: PDF
The Maze Runner Description
From School Library Journal
Grade 6–10—Thomas wakes up in an elevator, remembering nothing but his own name. He emerges into a world of about 60 teen boys who have learned to survive in a completely enclosed environment, subsisting on their own agriculture and supplies from below. A new boy arrives every 30 days. The original group has been in "the glade" for two years, trying to find a way to escape through a maze that surrounds their living space. They have begun to give up hope. Then a comatose girl arrives with a strange note, and their world begins to change. There are some great, fast-paced action scenes, particularly those involving the nightmarish Grievers who plague the boys. Thomas is a likable protagonist who uses the information available to him and his relationships (including his ties to the girl, Teresa) to lead the Gladers. Unfortunately, the question of whether the teens will escape the maze is answered 30 pages before the book ends, and the intervening chapter loses momentum. The epilogue, which would be deliciously creepy coming immediately after the plot resolves, fails to pack a punch as a result. That said,
The Maze Runner has a great hook, and fans of dystopian literature, particularly older fans of Jeanne DuPrau's
The City of Ember (Random, 2003), will likely enjoy this title and ask for the inevitable sequel.—
Kristin Anderson, Columbus Metropolitan Library System, OH END
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
James Dashner is the author of the New York Times bestselling Maze Runner series as well as the books in the 13th Reality series and The Infinity Ring. He is also the author of The Eye of Minds, the first book in the Mortality Doctrine series. Dashner was born and raised in Georgia but now lives and writes in the Rocky Mountains. To learn more about James and his books, visit JamesDashner.com or follow @jamesdashner on Twitter.
From the Hardcover edition. See all Editorial Reviews
- Age Range: 12 and up
- Grade Level: 7 and up
- Paperback: 375 pages
- Publisher: Delacorte Press; Reprint edition (August 24, 2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0385737955
- ISBN-13: 978-0385737951
- Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
- Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
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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