Book review: The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Hello reader,

Try however hard I may, I don’t remember how I came across this book (old age I tell ya), perhaps I decided to check it out after my usual aimless browsing for a book to read on Goodreads. I however, can tell you that I started reading a preview on Wattpad a year ago, way before I knew that a movie was being made based on the book. Earlier this year, I decided to read the entire book.

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The Maze Runner is the first book in the best-selling post-apocalyptic trilogy. The story begins with Thomas, a teenage boy who wakes up to find himself in a box, surrounded by boys in a strange place he does not know and with no memory of his life, or of who he is except for his name. The boys who found him tell him that he’s at a place they call The Glade, a mysterious place surrounded by a maze made of stone with walls that move everyday and stone doors that close every night and has weird mechanical creatures that roam around it. The Gladers, as they call themselves, had all arrived in the same way as Thomas did, with no memory of their past lives other than their names and they had created a community by themselves where each person has their own job. There is a small group of boys called Runners, whose task is to run through the maze in an attempt to solve it and find a way out of The Glade. The Runners have to be out of the maze every night in order to avoid the dangerous mechanical creatures, called Grievers and yes, they are as bad as they sound. Thomas finds out that despite boys running through it every day, they have not found a way out and no one has ever spent the night in the maze after the doors closed, and lived.

The day after Thomas arrives at The Glade, the boys find yet another arrival in the box- a girl. This is strange a strange occurrence which leaves the boys surprised and scared, because no other girl has ever been delivered to The Glade before and even more startling the girl delivers a message before she falls into a coma. A message that changes everything and life at The Glade becomes even more terrifying. *suspense music*

Ahh! Fans of books like The Hunger Games and Divergent will love this book as they all share a dystopian setting. The Maze Runner starts off slow but before you know it, the book picks up and then there is a lot of action then you can expect in a single book. Other than the Glader’s vocabulary which was a bit confusing to me at times (but don’t worry, you’ll get used to I and probably might even use it in everyday conversations) I did not want to put the book down. It is haunting, thrilling and at times terrifying. Not to worry, there is a bit of light-hearted humour here and there –pft! I say this like the humour makes up for my frayed nerves. Every chapter ended with a cliff-hanger that got me turning the page because dang it! I need to know what happened!

I recommend this book (duh) but I also suggest that you brace yourself, I do not want to spoil anything here but you probably shouldn’t read it if you’ve got a weak heart and you are very quick to anger haha!

According to Bella, The Maze Runner gets 3 and a half stars out of 5 stars from me.

Tomorrow I review the second book in the series, The Scorch Trails. Ooooh!