The Maze Runner Author: James Dashner | Language: English | ISBN:
B002QE3CTY | Format: PDF
The Maze Runner Description
Read the first book in the
New York Times bestselling Maze Runner series, perfect for fans of
The Hunger Games and
Divergent.
The Maze Runner motion picture starring Dylan O’Brien, Kaya Scodelario, Thomas Brodie Sangster, Will Poulter, and Aml Ameen hits theaters September 19, 2014!
If you ain’t scared, you ain’t human. When Thomas wakes up in the 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.
Praise for the Maze Runner series: “[A] nail-biting must-read.”
—Seventeen.com “Wonderful action writing
—fast-paced…but smart and well observed.”
—Newsday “Breathless, cinematic action.”
—Publishers Weekly “Heart-pounding to the very last moment.”
—Kirkus Reviews “Exclamation-worthy.”
—Romantic Times “Gripping reading.”
—BooklistFrom the Hardcover edition.- File Size: 3078 KB
- Print Length: 386 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0385737947
- Publisher: Delacorte Press (October 6, 2009)
- Sold by: Random House LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B002QE3CTY
- Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #292 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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in Books > Children's Books > Growing Up & Facts of Life > Friendship, Social Skills & School Life > Friendship - #1
in Books > Children's Books > Growing Up & Facts of Life > Friendship, Social Skills & School Life > Boys & Men - #3
in Books > Children's Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy & Magic
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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