On my road trip last week I finished a couple of books that have been on my list for a long time. The book I will be rambling about today is one that is recommended for fans of the
Hunger Games trilogy or just the YA
dystopian genre in general. I like me a well set up dystopian society and this series came highly recommended so off I dove into
The Mazerunner the first book in a trilogy (plus a prequel). Overall I have mixed feelings about this book, and hope that finishing the trilogy will fill in some of the gaps and make a better or at least more complete impression. As always SPOILERS AHEAD
We start the book in a small dark room, where our protagonist wakes up with no memory but his name, Thomas. The door opens and he is greeted by a bunch of teenage boys who are not very helpful in providing any details of his situation. He is in what the other boys call the Glade, an area of several acres that contains a farm/slaughter house, gardens, a small forest/graveyard, and a ramshackle house called the Homestead. The whole thing is contained by massive walls with giant gaps on all four sides. Thomas is assigned to Chuck who until Thomas's arrival was the newest boy. Chuck informs him that a new boy is brought to the Glade every 30 days without fail. That night Thomas witnesses the walls closing, completely sealing the boys in the Glade. He finds out that outside the walls is the Maze, which the boys hope by
solving will provide the key to there release. Thomas has an extremely difficult time getting information about his situation, but eventually figures out that nobody in the Glade has specific memories of their life before arriving, just general knowledge memories. He also learns that everybody is assigned a job based on their talents and that the Runners are a group of boys who go run and map the Maze everyday in hopes of solving it. Oddly enough even though nobody remembers anything about their prior life, a boy named Gally insists that he knows Thomas, that it is his fault that they are all stuck in the Glade. The next day while taking a tour with Newt the second in command, a boy named Ben who has been going through what the boys call the Changing goes crazy, screaming about seeing Thomas and attempting to kill him. He is stopped by Albie, the leader of the group and condemned to banishment outside of the walls. Thomas is told that banishment is akin to a death sentence because anybody caught out in the maze after dark is always killed by Grievers. Grievers are a cyborg type monster that look like giant blobs of slimy pink flesh that are augmented by any number of lethal metal devices. If you are stung by a Griever you must get back to the Glade as fast as you can so you can receive the Grief serum, which brings on the change, which also gives you back some of the memories of your old life. You would think this is a good thing, but the process is so horrific that even if you don't go crazy like Ben, the boys still refuse to talk about any memories they might have gained. As all this is taking place withing a day of Thomas's arrival, the alarm for the metal box goes off again and when it is opened a girl is inside. This is unusual for many reasons, a girl has never been to the Glade before, she came only one day after Thomas, and she bears a message stating that she is the last one, there will be no more. She goes comatose and is taken to the Homestead do recover. Thomas is immediately put under suspicion because even though he has only been there a day, nothing strange happened before he got there. Thomas thinks this is ridiculous as he has no memories of his own, but oddly does feel a sense of familiarity about the girl. Albie and the leader of the Runners, Minhoe go out to the maze to investigate other strange things and get stuck when Albie gets stung by a Griever. Thomas, against orders goes into the Maze to try and help them. He is able to not only defeat several Grievers, but manages to save Albie and Minhoe as well. When they get
back to the Glade everybody is astonished and Thomas is made a Runner. Albie gets the serum and goes through the Change. When he wakes up he tries to tell Thomas some of his memories but is prevented by some mysterious force. The girl starts talking telepathically to Thomas while still in a coma, telling him that she has initiated the ending...whatever that means. She wakes up and tells him her name is Teresa and that she remembers that the Maze is a code. Everybody is mistrustful of the girl, especially since what ever she triggered caused the doors of the wall to remain open after nightfall, allowing the Grievers to come into the Glade. Gally comes back and tells everybody that the Grievers are going to kill one person a night until it is all over and then sacrifices himself to the Grievers who then leave until the next night. Knowing that he has the memories of how to end this stuck in his head, Thomas intentionally gets stung by a Griever and goes through the Change. He comes back and tells everybody that he and Teresa were forced by scientists to help create the Glade and the Maze, that there telepathic link made them very special somehow. The scientist were then got tired of the experiment after a couple of years and dumped Thomas and Teresa into the Maze to finish it up. They figure out that the shifting Maze is actually a code that needs to be input into a computer that is hidden in an optical illusion of the edge of a cliff. The gang fights there way through the Grievers, losing most of the boys and finally make it to the outside. In a supposed final test Chuck is killed by a zombie Gally? Maybe? Not quit sure what happened there, but it did. The remaining boys and Teresa are rescued by a group claiming that they are against this type of cruel testing and explain the current state of things. A super sun flare fried a good chunk of Earth the same time a plague, called The Flare started ravaging the remaining humans. The boys were put into the Glade to see who would not give up looking for a solution, even when there was no solution (yeah doesn't make sense to me either).
Apparently they were looking for a group of boys who would be able to keep up the search for a cure for the Flare, not because they were smart, or had medical inclinations, or any sort of training, but because they kept looking for an impossible solution...even though there wasn't one. Anyways the scientists got sick of waiting for the boys to not give up on finding a solution, even though they claimed there wasn't one, even though there obviously was one 'cause they found it, but that wasn't the point so they sent Thomas and Teresa in to finish it up...to prove who knows what. The boys and Teresa are put into separate rooms for the night and told they will be completely filled in the next day. The book ends with a memo from one scientist to another, stating that the fake rescue went off without a hitch and they are looking forward to the next phase of testing.
.jpg)
If you actually read through that whole long synopsis you may have gotten the vibe that a few things did not work for me :-) I think the hardest part for me to swallow was the premise of the whole experiment, which was to find boys who would not give up looking for a solution, even though they kept saying there was no solution...but there was a solution because they used it to get out in the end. There was a lot of contradictory information like that in the book, which to me takes away some of its credibility. My other big issue was that essentially the whole book was about these two kids (Thomas and Teresa) who get dumped into this
.jpg)
experiment and pretty much give the boys step by step instructions on how to get out of the Maze. It seemed like a huge cop out. Also for having so many info dumps, I was still left very confused on the whole point of the experiment, why it was only boys who were chosen, what was the point of Teresa and Thomas and well pretty much everything. I get that finding a cure for the plague was pretty much impossible and they were looking for people who would not give up the search, but I still don't understand how torturing a bunch of teenage boys is going to result in people capable of finding a medical cure for this rampant disease. If I were any one of those boys who had to watch my fellow mates suffer and be killed and then dumped in this horrible world, I would do everything in my power to NOT help anybody. All that being said I finished the book in less then two days, the story kept me turning the pages and I still want to know what the heck is going on. The character development of most of the boys, especially Minhoe and Chuck were really well done and watching a group of young guys who were working together to make a peaceful, productive society instead of a savage, fighting, Alpha male one was very refreshing. I will be reading the next two books and the prequel because I am hoping that all together they will make a coherent story, but at this point I am a bit disappointed. You all go read it for yourself and tell me what you think Ok?
What is your biggest pet peeve in reading? Have you ever read a book that is page turning and not so great all at the same time? Do you love how my ramblings are almost as long as the book?
.jpg)
.jpg)
room it is a boy named Aris who informs the Gladers that he was the "Teresa" in another Maze situation that was completely identical except that it was full of girls instead of boys. The only other differences are that more girls made it out then boys (well duh! :-) ) and that his partner Rachel got killed in front of them, since they didn't have a Chuck to jump in front of her. A man appears behind a force field and informs the Gladers that they have all been infected by the Flare and that they had exactly two weeks to make it 100 miles across the Scorch (an area that has been devastated by a mega sun flare ((this has a serious SyFy channel feel to it)) and is pretty brutal on its own) and make it to a safe haven where they will all be cured. So off they set and as you can probably guess all kinds of horrific, non-sensicle things happen to them (seriously a head eating ball is just one of the horrors they deal with). Teresa also shows up randomly to add additional torture to poor Thomas (who is still our main character). After many deaths and injuries they make it to this city type place that is over run by Cranks in various states of the disease. They make a tentative alliance with a pair named Jorge and Brenda who have just been diagnosed and exiled. The group gets separated, Jorge and the Gladers wander around and Brenda and Thomas get into a couple of scrapes. Cranks are crazy and do crazy things. Eventually they all meet up again to continue across the Scorch. Teresa shows up again with Group B (the girls) and captures Thomas. They are supposed to kill him, but he talks the girls out of it. Teresa and Aris get together and kidnap Thomas and take him to this box thingy that is supposed to kill him. It releases some gas that heals him and Teresa and Aris said it was all part of the plan that he felt betrayed...yeah. Thomas is understandably unable to forgive Teresa, or even believe anything that anybody is saying at this point. They all meet back up with the other groups at the supposed safe haven site. About 30 minutes before the deadline, weird monstery humany things appear and start trying to kill the kids. Most of them hang on long enough to get to the deadline. A ship appears in the sky and collects the kids. They tell them that they are safe now (we've heard that before) and that everything will be explained. Thomas falls asleep to Teresa talking in his head, telling him that WICKED (the group behind all this crap) is good. The book ends with a memo talking about removing the mind wipe and telling the kids which of them are immune to the Flare..jpg)
Maze. We keep seeing the WICKED people talk about patterns, and creating patterns, and that all this pointless stuff will result in patterns...but not a single mention of what the heck it is. I will give the author props for inventiveness when it comes to the myriad of tortures he puts his characters through. Walks down pitch dark tunnels resulting in peoples heads being eaten by balls of metal, random boxes of fear, giant monsters men who can be taken down by popping orange bubbles. All very terrifying. The character development was not as complete as the last book, while the friendships between Newt, Minho, and Thomas stayed refreshingly intact and very bromance, the new characters were just kind of tossed in there to further the "plot" which is pretty sparse to begin with. Overall not one of my favorite books, it was very frustrating to watch these kids get jerked around, tortured, hurt, killed, lied to and then tell them "it's for a reason, but we won't tell you the reason". As a reader, I personally can only take so watching characters get relentlessly punished with out any payoff, it starts to feel icky and squirmy, like I only am reading it so I can watch them suffer. Like I said earlier, I will finish off the series to see if there is any pay off, but I think the open mind part is starting to suffer. Those of you who enjoyed these books, please let me know in the comments why, because I really want to know! .jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
experiment and pretty much give the boys step by step instructions on how to get out of the Maze. It seemed like a huge cop out. Also for having so many info dumps, I was still left very confused on the whole point of the experiment, why it was only boys who were chosen, what was the point of Teresa and Thomas and well pretty much everything. I get that finding a cure for the plague was pretty much impossible and they were looking for people who would not give up the search, but I still don't understand how torturing a bunch of teenage boys is going to result in people capable of finding a medical cure for this rampant disease. If I were any one of those boys who had to watch my fellow mates suffer and be killed and then dumped in this horrible world, I would do everything in my power to NOT help anybody. All that being said I finished the book in less then two days, the story kept me turning the pages and I still want to know what the heck is going on. The character development of most of the boys, especially Minhoe and Chuck were really well done and watching a group of young guys who were working together to make a peaceful, productive society instead of a savage, fighting, Alpha male one was very refreshing. I will be reading the next two books and the prequel because I am hoping that all together they will make a coherent story, but at this point I am a bit disappointed. You all go read it for yourself and tell me what you think Ok?
