Monday Musings \\ BR - The Maze Runner Series

The Maze Runner Series by James Dashner

Premise: When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his name. He's surrounded by strangers--boys whose memories are also gone.
Outside the towering stone walls that surround the Glade is a limitless, ever-changing maze. It's the only way out--and no one's ever made it through alive.
Then a girl arrives. The first girl ever. And the message she delivers is terrifying. (Taken from goodreads)

Soon, Thomas and the others find themselves in the midst of a battle, and neither side looks like the good side.

Language: There is lots of mild language scattered through out all three books, and the characters use a lot of made-up slang that sounds dirty but aren't really curse words.

Content: Murder, lots of gory deaths, fist-fights, a rather disturbing disease, corpses hanging from the ceiling, shooting, disturbing zombie-like creatures that they have to fight, and grisly death-by-lightning scenes.

Stars: Three for the over-all series, four for the first book (The Maze Runner), three for the last two (The Scorch Trials, The Death Cure).

I was all ready to enjoy this series and get a lot out of it.

I was deeply disappointed.

I really liked the first book. It was intriguing, never had a dull moment, had me on the edge of my seat constantly. The plot was a little blotchy, the main character's emotional range somewhere between Mount Everest and the Grand Canyon (plus, sometimes what was happening and what Thomas felt about it really didn't make sense and made you want to slap him), but it was still very enjoyable.

And then came the second book. One of my favorite characters just sort of disappeared during basically the entire thing except for the very beginning and the end. But the plot smoothed out from the first book, and all of the action was really cool and Thomas made a pretty awesome character.

Then… the third book.

I have a tendency to yell or squeal at books when I see something coming that I don't like and I'm basically threatening the author "DON'T YOU DARE!" or "Really, you use that line?" I did that for literally the entire climax of the last book. And the author still did exactly what I yelled at him not to do.

I really wanted to love to series. But I was disappointed. By the end, Thomas was acting like an idiot (though, he was still a very cool character), and the ending was (mostly) satisfying, but not exactly well done.

I have to give the author kudos though, for having absolutely no compassion on his characters. He just threw horrible thing after horrible thing at them, and it was all done masterfully and carried the story well.

It's hard not to say too much without giving everything away, but basically, when I finished this, I had to hug my sister for about 10 minutes, and told her I'd given up hope for Young Adult fiction.

But at the same time, I wouldn't say it isn't worth reading them. I did enjoy them, I just didn't like them.

Either way, I guess this review isn't really going anywhere. Mostly I just needed to post something today…

To conclude, frankly, this series has left me traumatized after lifting my hopes so high and then dropping me all the way down into the fiery center of the earth.

*sighs and finds a stuffed animal to hug and cry on*

~The Scribbler in the Attic