"All I will say it that sometimes what you see is not real and sometimes what you do not see is real." (Rat Man)
The Maze Runner doesn't have great character development, but the plot works and I enjoyed reading about the Glades. In The Scorch Trials, there is no character development and no substantial plot. The Scorch Trials is a failure!
The characters suck! Thomas is a Gary-Stu who is good at everything and can do no wrong. In The Scorch Trials, he is always sleeping and passing out. Great protagonist! After all the crap he's gone through inThe Maze Runner, he's still coping, quick thinking and better than everybody else. His experiences do not change him. Minho is the sarcastic, smart-ass with all the quips, Newt is the calm, rational guy who holds the team together, and all the other Gladers, well, Thomas doesn't give a crap about them so why should we?
Many secondary characters are introduced: Group B (which is the Gladers gender-swapped with a bunch of girls and one guy), Brenda and Jorge. However, they are stereotypical characters who aren't developed. Brenda, Theresa and the rest of the girls are literally the same character. I also didn't get to see any new sides of the characters that I loved from The Maze Runner. Where's Minho's vulnerable side and Newt's angry side? Huh? The only character that I cared about in the The Maze Runner, isn't around in The Scorch Trials. Chuck would have made this book great!
The romance in The Scorch Trials feels so out of place. Theresa and Thomas? Brenda and Thomas? I don't care! Even after what happened with Theresa in The Scorch Trials, I DON'T CARE. Thomas can have a romantic relationship with whoever he wants and live his Gary-Stu life.
The Scorch Trials suffers heavily from second book syndrome. The Gladers are put in a desert environment and have to reach a 'safe haven' in order to receive a cure for the Flare, a disease that they are infected with, that has gripped their dystopian world and that makes people become Cranks and go mad.
The following is me having a normal, ranty conversation with The Scorch Trials. No, I'm not crazy! :
Book: Apparently these trials are supposed to save the human race?
Me: Okay, then... How?
Book: By dropping a bunch of kids in the desert to see which of them will survive?
Me: But doesn't WICKED already have a cure?
Book: Huh... Yeah, but did you notice all the scientific words, that Thomas got some of his memories back, and that there's a bunch of questions that need to be answered.
Me: But, where's the plot going and when are these questions going to be answered?
Book: Oh, don't worry about that! Here's some action and plot twists that will confuse you so that you don't notice that the plot's going nowhere and that you aren't going to get any answers.
Me: WHY?!?! What did I do to deserve this? How many ants did I kill in my past life?!?
The 'shocking' plot twists don't work because I don't care about the characters. If the characters succeed or fail, I would feel the same way that I felt while reading The Scorch Trials, indifferent. The action and plot twists are also extreme. On every second page some type of action takes place. I literally became immune to all the action that was going on in The Scorch Trials. My overexposure to the action made my indifference towards the characters worse. I also never got a sense that Thomas's life was in immediate danger. So whenever he was injured or at the brink of death, I knew that he wouldn't be killed off.
The Scorch Trials makes me feel nothing... Wait! The Scorch Trials makes me feel extremely angry for wasting my time. I was so frustrated because a bunch of important questions were being thrown at me and in The Scorch Trials, there's no attempt to answer those important questions. There's too much of mindless action and plot twists and I felt so detached from the plot and the characters. I'm not impressed!