The Maze Runner Series

I debated for a very long time on whether or not I should write up these books individually or in a collective post. With the intention of preserving space and prioritizing your time, I’ve decided to just go with the single post. Therefore, I apologize in advance for the length, considering I have five books to talk about in here. And I will preemptively state SPOILER ALERT because it’s very hard to talk about a series of books without giving anything in any of the books away (but I have done my best to keep most of the important, good stuff under wraps). So without further ado…

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Genre: young adult, dystopian

Rating: ten out of ten scrubby leaves 🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿

I don’t usually go for the whole post-apocalyptic, world-is-a-mess, human-experiment kind of thing in books (I’m looking at you Hunger Games). But this book rocked. Seriously. I am an English major, so I am no stranger to late nights with books, but it has been years since I have stayed up past midnight reading because I simply could not put the book down. I finished the first three books in the series in four days because I genuinely couldn’t stop.

The Maze Runner follows the story of a teen named Thomas trapped in a giant forested maze with no memory and no escape. He and the group of boys stuck in the maze grapple with their isolation, struggle to find life beyond the walls binding them, and literally fight monsters in hopes of finding freedom.

For a young adult novel, Dashner writes characters that are comprehensible for readers across all ages and develops a setting that is both dramatic and enticing. I often struggle to read male authors who attempt to write female characters (don’t even get me started on the problems I have with this), but Dashner created a female protagonist (Teresa) with strength and believability, a feat doubly difficult considering he was writing her as a teenager. The interactions and dialogue across the book were valuable and well written. More than this, however, I commend his plot timing. He developed the story’s arc with the right speed, making me as a reader comfortable in an unfamiliar terrain while still driving me toward the edge of my seat. I honestly have no qualms with this first book; I absolutely loved it.

The Scorch Trials by James Dashner

Genre: young adult, dystopian

Rating: eight out of ten toasty little suns ☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️🌑🌑

The second installment of the Maze Runner Series follows Thomas and his friends into the barren wasteland of a sun scorched planet as they attempt to overcome their second set of trials. They seek not only to understand the motivations of the organization experimenting upon them (WICKED) but to survive long enough to free themselves from it.

This book lacked a little of the clarity that The Maze Runner offered, leaving the characters with reactions and responses that felt a little disingenuous to the world Dashner had previously created. It still had incredible pacing and an intriguing plot with twists abounding, but his introduction of new characters lacked depth and detail. The Scorch Trials brought a beautiful complexity to the series, however, by having Thomas wrestle with conceptions of “goodness”. He and the other characters in the book struggle to understand whether actions taken for the greater good are ever truly good, and it’s a theme that adds a very intense quality to their plight and had me as a reader constantly straddling and weighing the two sides of their book-long argument.

The Death Cure by James Dashner

Genre: young adult, dystopian

Rating: seven out of ten popped up pills 💊💊💊💊💊💊💊🌑🌑🌑

This book is the chronological conclusion to the Maze Runner storyline. The Death Cure is about Thomas’ fight to bring down WICKED. It’s hard to talk too much about this book’s storyline without giving everything away, but ultimately Thomas seeks to restore rightness to his world by undermining the organization that tortured and killed so many of his friends in the effort to find a cure for humanity’s wide spread deathly illness.

This book, of the first three, had the most difficulty with pacing. While I understand that the plot didn’t have the same driving force of danger that propelled the other two stories forward, it still lacked a sense of immediacy. I felt like the story was struggling to get anywhere, or build up to anything. And while Dashner was able to return the strength to his characters through fitting dialogue, the book was ultimately very anti-climactic. I liked that Dashner developed and furthered Thomas’ character by having him emotionally face the person he used to be as well as return to the maze that began his story. But as an end to Thomas and his friends’ journey, it felt a bit lackluster.

The Kill Order by James Dashner

Genre: young adult, dystopian

Rating: five out of ten pointy syringes 💉💉💉💉💉🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑

A prequel to the series, The Kill Order takes place between ten and fifteen (don't even get me started on this book's flawed timeline) years before the maze trials with an entirely different cast. This book tells the story of WICKED’s intentional release of the Flare (the deadly virus ravaging the human population that the Maze and Scorch Trials were meant to find a cure for) and follows a group of people’s fight to save themselves and their peers from impending insanity and death.

The first thing I thought when I started reading this books was: Man, cullings seem to be very ‘in’ right now. I feel like I have been reading and watching a lot of content that employs the culling of humanity as a main plot point (see Inferno, Kingsmen: The Secret Service, etc.).

Aside from this, the main character Mark was so eerily like Thomas that it ended up being really hard for me to distance myself from the previous books and attach myself to a new character. It was like Dashner didn’t even try to create new and differentiated characters. While I think this book layered a storyline that added depth to the series as a whole, Dashner struggled with believability in this book. His writing lacked quality development and left me missing the previous books instead of feeling like I was getting more of them.

The Fever Code by James Dashner

Genre: young adult, dystopian

Rating: one out of ten sick guys 😷🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑

I know no one ever listens to this advice (I mean how many people did I tell to stop watching Grey’s Anatomy after season 5?!) but my god, get off the series before it jumps the shark. Stop reading the books after The Death Cure. I couldn’t even finish this book because it was so boring and difficult to read.

Another prequel, The Fever Code is the story of Thomas and Teresa working for WICKED before being placed in the maze.

I am not sure what to tell you because reading this book felt like slogging through mud. Not only was the plot lacking drive and direction, but there were so many plot holes and timing issues and inconsistencies that I couldn’t even focus on the content. I am biased because I hate plot holes; it irritates me when an author doesn’t take the time to sort out their stories and make cohesive and coherent time lines. The inconsistencies were so rampant that the book read like it was written by a ghost writer who didn’t even bother to read the rest of the series. Even ignoring my bias on plot holes, this book was rough. Not only does Dashner fail to write the characters as children, giving them varied and inappropriate dialogue for their ages, but he doesn’t add anything new to the series. The book simply rehashes the characters problems and emotional struggles in a way that felt like Dashner was beating a dead horse, persistently. I bailed out three quarters of the way through because I simply wasn’t drawn to read it.

All this being said. Read the Maze Runner Series, because the first three books are strong and innovative. My problems with the prequels is that they lack contribution, and read instead like retellings. But their failings do not discount or detract from my love of the original three books. After reading them I couldn’t help but to tout their strength to anyone who would listen. I would so thoroughly recommend them.

A disclaimer to those who want to watch the movies though: Dylan O’Brein may be a hottie patatie, but those films take a hell of a lot of liberties with the storyline. So much so that the second film might as well be a completely different story with the same character names as the book. Not to say they aren’t good, they just aren’t but very remotely based on Dashner’s work.

To view or purchase this series, here is its link on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Maze-Runner/dp/0385388896/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1507417731&sr=8-1&keywords=maze+runner+series