Customer Reviews

The Maze Runner (Maze Runner Trilogy, Book 1)

5 star:		(189)
4 star:		(101)
3 star:		(51)
2 star:		(34)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

I first heard about this book at an SCWBWI conference where its editor from Delacorte spoke highly of how it grabbed her attention right away.

I have to agree. The one thing that Dashner does right from start to finish is barely provide enough information to answer the questions that form in the reader's mind BUT what information he gives does promote one to keep reading.

Curiosity drove me to read this book straight through...that and the fact that the writing wasn't all that challenging.

I'm not trying to bag on Dashner, but I was a little surprised at the many passed-on opportunities he had to draw me further into the story or even care more about the characters' fates .

I felt consistently disappointed with what I was offered of Thomas's character -- far too sulky and desirous of screaming at people who can hardly offer him the answers, etc. he's so desperate for. And Teresa, for as important as she's made out to be, is so flat. I think it was well within the author's scope to improve the depth of these characters considering the decent job he did on secondary characters like Chuck and Minho.

By the time I reached the end, I all but rolled my eyes. I felt roughly the same as I did when I finished watching 'The Cube'...interesting story, but what was the point of putting the characters through all that? Especially when the characters themselves hardly spend any real time trying to understand their situation. And this latter part actually seems quite critical to the purpose of the situation they're in.

Okay, I know this is meant to be YA but it certainly had room to grow in the 'thought provoking' department. It's a decent and entertaining story, but will it become the topic of critical academic discussion? Not likely.

It's far too light in depth and development as it stands. Perhaps the eventual trilogy as a whole will provide something 'more'.

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! They were all believable, but they weren't compelling enough to carry the story. Neither was the new girl very interesting. Thomas is attracted to her, but again, that's an artifact of his past, not a real live reaction that we get to watch develop.

Overall, it was a fun read, and I don't regret the time spent, but I won't look for the sequels.

Lately, I've been really into the YA dystopian books. I blindly picked up The Hunger Games last summer and loved it. I've since read Forest of Hands and Teeth, Birthmarked, Adoration of Jenna Fox, The Host, and a few others, all of which I enjoyed. I like stories that are not noticeably YA, except maybe for the absence of vulgarities and sex. It was very obvious to me that The Maze Runner was a YA book, which for some, may not matter. But for me, it lacked the depth and intricacies that make or breaks a story.

I was absolutely excited for The Maze Runner after reading the Amazon reviews, but this is the very first time I've been so sorely disappointed when picking up a book due to other reviewers' enthusiasm. I had a hard time getting through The Maze Runner. There were a few times it interested me to keep reading, but for the most part I could only read it for a 1/2 hour at a time, when usually I could read for hours on end. Towards the middle I started skimming and reading dialogue to push myself through the bland writing.

I wasn't emotionally invested in any of the characters, and had a really tough time picturing a lot of it, especially the grievers, which I blame on the writing. The new words to substitute for swears were annoying, and the characters very flat. I thought the ending was predictable and lackluster. This book might really work for some but I really, really didn't like it at all.

Read the title. That is the question throughout the entire book. The author, readers, and characters all think that one sentence over and over. I read this book and loved the plot. I wished this was written in first person though. The chacters were shallow, amd the "scary" maze was really no threat at all.

I would like the book if it was written by a different person. One who didnt make up stupid words like clunck and shank.

Over all the ending was predictable. Im not going to tell you it, but you will probably be able to tell in the first 20 pages how the book ends.

I am 11 so you probably wont think much of the review, but this book (as James Dashner would put it) is shank. Its not worth buying.

The Maze Runner kept me up to the wee hours of the morning as I raced to the finish. I loved it in every way: the pacing, the characters, the plot. Thomas wakes up to find himself in a box that opens up to the glade, the central part of an elaborate maze where monsters dwell. From the moment of Thomas's entrance into the glade, he works to try and recover any part of his memory while also trying to solve the maze and stop the deaths of the boys who live in the Maze with him. I would say this book is a cross between Ender's Game and Lord of the Flies. It's a tale that is expertly woven, true to the target audience of teen boys, and filled with enough action to keep me up all night. The only downfall of the book was realizing I have to wait for the sequel. I look forward to reading more of Dashner's work.

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! The next twist happens, followed by some explanation. And so on, until one of the biggest Shazams!: The crew exits the maze and suddenly, for no apparent reason, one of their members is killed. Subtle build-up of suspense and intricately interwoven plots do not exist in this novel. It's almost entirely composed of sudden action followed by explanatory reaction.

All this might not matter so much, if I'd felt in any way connected to the characters. But I didn't. Most of the boys meshed together in my brain, particularly since so many of them end up acting "out of character" anyway. As for Teresa and Thomas, readers know little about their back-story (until the peritextual "Exclusive Wicked Correspondence" at the end), and I didn't find their characters all that complex, deep, relatable, or quirky (aside from their obvious telepathic skill). Character "complexity" in this novel was little more than character "unpredictability."

In short, I was disappointed. The reason I gave the book 2 stars instead of 1, though, is because I did at least finish it. I've no intention of reading the sequel, however.

I wanted to like this book so much. I just finished reading Mockingjay (The Final Book of The Hunger Games), and heard this book was similar. Basically a number of boys (I think around 100-200?) are trapped in a walled glade that has a maze and blahblahblah I think you probably already know the summary, right? I don't think it's a spoiler to say that these kids are put there as a part of an experiment/competition to see which ones of them will come out alive (and there's more but it's a spoiler.) Okay, fair enough sounds good so far.

We open the book with a bang, Thomas wakes up in an elevator shaft and is pulled up by a group of kids. His memory is gone he has a million questions. The bang quickly fizzles into a study of 'how much can i frustrate the reader before the reader flings the book across the room' as EVERY question Thomas asks is deflected with 'We'll tell you later, stop asking questions.' I am sure the writer is trying to build up suspense but he only succeeds in annoying the reader. There is no good reason to keep those questions unanswered for that long.

The slang was annoying. I realize that it's a KID'S BOOK and using the common words for feces and genitals in every other sentence just isn't going to fly but reading words like clunk and shank every few sentences was annoying.

Another thing was that the story is written in such a way that groups of people are just standing around doing nothing while two or three characters interact. This is most noticeable near the end. There are supposed to be 20 or 30 people present and they all just stand and stare while the main characters do stuff. It's kind of like in Lost: The Complete Collection [Blu-ray] Where the main gang does stuff and the other characters are just useless background people who's main job is to die in dramatic ways.

The introduction of Theresa (actually I just want to call her Smurfette as she is the lone bagel in the sausage factory.) is jarring and comes too quick. She is comatose and useless for a good portion of the book and her sheer existence brings up too many uncomfortable questions. Being a KIDS BOOK, all 200 of the teenage boys are perfect little gentlemen and wouldn't even think of being inappropriate with her. (In the same KIDS BOOK the author doesn't mind brutally kidnapping torturing and killing children though.) The 'magical connection' between her and Thomas felt completely out of place for this story and setting. It was unnecessary, and turned a dystopian adventure book into a borderline princess fairy book (okay, i'm exaggerating on that one but really a simple walkie-talkie or a cellphone could have accomplished the same thing and allowed the story to remain scientific and not breach the level where suspension of disbelief becomes a hardship.)

The most frustrating thing about this book was the ending wherein we are explained the reasons behind why the kids were put in the maze. The fact that only boys were selected (Smurfette doesn't count) immediately becomes a glaring sign of sexism. (No there's no maze for girls anywhere nearby to give the female brain a chance (or maybe i'm wrong, is there a female group B?.) But at least there are non-white people in the book who play major roles... And some of the scientists are female...) The idea that this maze test can accomplish the goal better than other methods (for example methods that wont EMOTIONALLY SCAR AND TRAUMATIZE these kids for life) is laughable and depressing.

I think this was a creative idea that just wasn't creative enough to make sense and be logical.

I was recommended this book after "The Hunger Games", and what a letdown.

It's hard to pinpoint what I disliked about the book, as it's not just the one thing. The main character is the classical "Mary Sue" type of wish-fulfillment character, practically perfect in every way, which also makes him terribly boring. The made-up slang is jarringly used, with no apparent origin (what is a "slinthead"?) and looks like it was inserted into the manuscript via find & replace. The monsters are apparently some sort of battle-slug, both hard to visualize and not particularly terrifying. And the plot relies on constant "aha!" moments, when a character suddenly comes out with a plot point that's got no basis in the story, it's just the next stop in the plot, so hey, now he magically knows it. It comes across as horribly false.

Worst of all, the characters just aren't smart. Thomas himself is not intelligent as much as he is given information in a contrived manner. The girl appears to be making a cameo from a totally different story. Truly, a frustrating read.

Logically, this book just doesn't hang together. It's a very disappointing read for anyone who likes smart, scrappy characters who are people rather than just mannequins going through the motions mandated by the plot. And it's a disappointment for its lack of sense, and... sigh. It's like the author tried to recreate "Ender's Game", just without any of the character study, world-building or philosophy.

Save yourself the aggro. Just go get "The Hunger Games" or "Ender's Game". This book's got very few brains and no heart.

Others have compared this novel to "Lord of the Flies" because it is a survial-mode group of boys, trying to figure how to live together in "the maze". I think that "Lord of the Flies" was less about survival-mode, and more about how humans relate to one-another, a much more complex story told, based on a premise /backdrop built to illuminate same.

This is more about circumstance, and survival and the unraveling of this mystery. It drags us blind, kicking and screaming to it's "revelations".

As anticipated, the Maze" is pretty much foretelling what and why these young people are here. And, as expected, the answer leaves this book open-ended enough for a #2 to come. Yes it's a "dark" book, but that doesn't necessarily make it good.

I think this could translate better as a film script, with exciting visuals and foreboding music and special effects, as the humanity of these characters are never truly explored to any satisfaction, nor are they very likable.

Just my .02 for free.
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The Maze Runner is a fast YA read that zips along quickly, mostly keeps the reader's interest, is relatively suspenseful, but never as gripping as it should be due to weaknesses in detail and character. It starts off strongly, with Thomas, the main character, riding an old, creaky elevator seemingly forever upward. Details have been wiped from his memory so he has no idea of where he's coming from or where he is heading, no idea of who he is save for his name. When he arrives, it's in a place known as The Glade, a relatively large open area bounded by towering stone walls and populated by a group of boys, all of whom arrived as he did and with their memories wiped as well. Beyond the stone walls lies a huge maze whose walls move every night and whose corridors are overrun with "Grievers"--deadly life-machine hybrids that either kill you or "sting you", forcing what's known as "The change", which seemingly brings back at least some memories, along with driving some nearly insane. Thomas' arrival sparks drastic and possibly deadly changes in the Glade, driving the boys to an even more urgent need to solve the mysteries of the maze.
Dashner does a solid job of keeping the reader guessing, mostly through Thomas' frustrated attempts to get answers, which few of the boys are willing to give. But after a while the boys' refusal to give the "Greenie" any sense of what's going on becomes a bit annoying and hard to believe. Thomas' anger and frustration are well conveyed, as is the desire of Chuck, a younger boy and the previous "Greenie", to find a place in this odd society and a friend as well, but beyond those two, the characterizations are pretty thin.
The plot is solid but has a few holes, and while its fast pace is sometimes the book's greatest strength strength, it's also its greatest flaw, as too much happens too fast, so that the reader is robbed of a lot of the clear potential for suspense, tension, meaningful conflict or emotion. The end is especially abrupt. The somewhat abstract nature of the Grievers, despite the detailed description we get they never feel like a full or real menace, not a driven or an intentional one, also robs the book of some tension.
The novel ends with a resolution while also pointing the way toward the next book. If you're looking for a fast read with a smattering of suspenseful or action moments, and don't care much if the characters are a bit flat or if the plot has some nagging holes, then you'll probably enjoy The Maze Runner. But those looking for more depth to character or a more fully-realized plot and setting should look elsewhere, such as The Hunger Games, which Maze Runner shares some elements with but is a much paler, weaker echo of. I'd also say that unlike Hunger Games, this is one of those YA books that really is a YA, and probably a younger, more male YA.