Book Review: Maze Runner

BYOB Book Club: January 2011

Book read: "The Maze Runner," James Dashner 

Overall rating: 3.4 

Ladies in attendance: 9

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’re 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.

Our review: 

Those of us able to attend our gathering this month had a bit of a split reaction over this book. Some of us loved it and ranked it quite high, others ranked it quite a bit lower. 

The interesting commonality was that some of us who read the first and enjoyed it to go onto the next two books in the series, all found the latter two to be disappointing in comparison.

The discussion around it had a few themes. Whether we liked it or not, we all agreed it was a quick read with a plot that moved along fairly rapidly. Some of us found the plot to be really interesting and intriguing, others were highly disappointed for various reasons. 

For those who loved it, it was a quick read and made them want to move along to the next book in the series and get answers to their questions.

 Those who didn't like it had various reasons: for some, it wasn't their genre. For others, they loved this genre, but felt this book didn't represent it well. It was noted that plots quite similar to this book had been done before, sometimes worse and sometimes better. A funny example of what was considered to worse was a comparison to the movie "The Cube," which, by those who had seen it, was considered to be a terrible movie. 

Overall, we all agreed that the writing was weak and generally felt it talked down to the audience, especially through the frequent use of fragments. It was a middle of the road read for all of us. 


So, the question comes down to "to recommend or to not recommend"... that is the question... And I'm going to say that might be a split for "Maze Runner", but a definite, skip the other two. Just leave yourself wondering because at the end of it all, you still will be anyway! 


As a final note, movie rights have been bought and some thought it could have potential to make a good movie, others were less sold on it. And on that note, I leave you with the other movie of the night, "The Cube."