"Old life's over, new life's begun. Learn the rules quick, listen, don't talk. (Alby)
In the past year, I've read one million dystopian books that all sound exactly the same. I was sick of the dystopian genre. The Maze Runner came to me at the worst time. I booked this book from my school library ages ago and when I wasn't interested in reading it, it was waiting for me. Murphy's Law.
As a person who enjoys character-driven stories, this book wouldn't have worked for me under normal circumstances.
Thomas, the main character is a Gary-Stu. He can do everything, is the smartest character and is extremely noble and self-sacrificing. His perfectness got on my nerves. He remains a heroic Gary Stu throughout this book and his character does not develop. The other characters, although diverse in looks and ethnicity, did not have diverse personalities. The characters that were interesting such as Newt, Alby and Minho were not given the same attention that Thomas was and were brushed aside. Gally is a bullying character with no redeeming qualities and no depth and Theresa, the only girl in The Glades who could have made for a great discussion for girl-power becomes a cliche', beautiful and tough as nails heroine with absolutely no defining personality except her ability to kick butt.
However, the world-building was fantastic. This book has a unique story about a community surrounded by a maze and the rules and the concept of the maze and The Glades and the was done quite well. In fact, the world-building in this book is quite simple, but it's also easy to understand. The creepiness of the maze and the tragic feeling of the Glades is also extremely well-written. However, the action scenes was difficult to visualise.
This book starts off with many questions that are important to the plot. Thomas is extremely inquisitive and he asks Newt, Alby and the fellow Gladers to provide him with answers. Unfortunately, Alby and Newt aren't willing to answer questions that would have provided a solution a long time ago. I felt as though Dashner was stringing along a plot that could have easily been solved by not providing information. I was also extremely annoyed when Thomas started remembering certain things at a time when it was needed to further the plot or story. Not cool!
While The Maze Runner was an interesting book while I was reading it, it wasn't addictive. I could put this book down for a day and not think about it or care about reading it, but while reading it, I did enjoy it.
A book that compares itself to The Hunger Games has to either be just as good as The Hunger Games or exceed the AMAZINGNESS of The Hunger Games. This book didn't reach The Hunger Games level (I mean very few dystopian books can), but it is an action-packed, fast paced read.