The Maze Runner

If you enjoyed the Hunger Games series, you should enjoy this.

Very interesting plot, very immature writing style. Probably better categorized as a middle grade book.

This book was okay, not great, just okay. I didn't particularly connect with any of the characters and while the story did keep me interested, I didn't care for how it ended. I don't think I'll be reading the prequel/sequels (unless I can pick them up as cheaply - $1.99 - as I did this one.)

Well written story and interesting characters but felt frustrated at having no clue what was going on overall, even after the story ended. Felt little emotion that I should root for the characters.

The movie preview for this story drew me into to check it out before release. With a lot of recent young adult novels in a similar world being made into movies (Hunger Games, Enders Game), this one looked like it could be another hit.

The book though seemed like a copy of too many other stories – namely the above two. Without storyline spoilers though, the feel from the book is similar, but the connection to the characters was limited. I'm undecided if I'll listen to the other two books in the series.

Enjoyed this book. Was pretty fast paced. Not mind stretching really but a enjoyable read. Half way through I started to wonder if the end would be a disappointing, but I felt it ended well. Think I'll keep reading the series.

My daughter encouraged me to read this before the movie comes out next week.

RTC

BLUF: Skip this series. If you do choose to read this story, don't expect it to be anything like the Hunger Games.

Pros

- Good idea for a story

- Poor execution of the story
- Characters have no depth
- Characters use works like “shuck” in place of f... (I'm not a fan of slang as is)
- Characters suddenly and miraculously know solutions to their problems, without any sort of struggle or lead up to the realization
- The book drags
- The book ends in a cliffhanger

3.5★
Confesso que fiquei com o coração na mão em muitos momentos. É uma leitura empolgante e bem rápida. Não tem um momento de reflexão ótimas frases para pensar na vida e coisas do tipo. É um livro para pura descontração que com certeza exige que seja lido toda a serie a favor de um entendimento do que se acontece. Afinal, você termina o livro com mais duvidas do que começou.
E tenho uma pergunta.... Qual é a aparência do Tom? Pois, se não fosse pela capa da box e a promoção do filme - o que me levou a ler o livro inteiro imaginando Dylan O'Brien em cada cena lida - não saberia imaginar como o gato é. De forma alguma (por mais que esteja implícito que todos são trabalhados no fitness, exceto provavelmente o Chuck.

Mas falando do que importa: o livro não é uma revolução literária, segue bastante a linha de distopia tão em alta no momento (vide The Hunger Games, Divergente, até mesmo os heróis do Olimpo, para os defensores das cenas de ação de Percy Jackson ...), bem escrito no sentido de não querer perder o fim da meada, não deixar o leitor na mão a idéia de pânico vivida pelos meninos... mas nada muito rebuscado, na verdade um leitura simples, voltada a um publico “moleque”, shonen, mais especificamente. Também confesso ter passado raiva no começo or ninguém explicar nada, saberes nada e malhas pode perguntar nada!!! Eu morreria num lugar desse enforcada pela minha própria língua por não obter resposta de nada! Sem contar que Thomas, como a bola da vez, a esperança do paranauê, estava, na verdade, se saindo um belo de um idiota. Como pode o principal ser covarde desse tanto?! Newt e Min Ho mereciam um capitulo a parte pois carregaram o livro em muitos momentos. E qual a lógica de terem palavrões próprios? Quis morrer quando comecei a ler isso. Sem romance algum, por maiores os indícios que o autor tenha demonstrado durante todo o texto.
Senti que faltou um pouco mais de foco no labirinto. Pois.... É a graça do negocio. O pânico de estar preso em algo que não tem saída visível dentro de dois anos... Era algo muito fabuloso de se explorar e sem deixar o livros cansativo.
Pecou um pouco em algumas descrições, como dos Verdugos e afins.

E quem é o Grupo B?!?!?!?!?!?!??

Enfim... Continuar a ler a seis para ter certeza de tudo :D e ver se melhora. Se muda tudo...
E dar credito... Pois alguma coisa deve-se tirar de bom depois de tantas páginas e tanta produção RPG como deste livro.

Lu juste après avoir vu le film, le livre est clairement plus intéressant et fouillé. La mise en place des personnages et des lieux de l'intrigue est bien ficelée, même si l'on reste avec énormément de questions à la fin du premier tome, mais ça ne donne que plus envie encore de lire la suite :)

Pros: realistic teen male characters, positive reactions from teens under pressure

Cons: frustrating plot

Thomas wakes up in an elevator with no memory of his life. When the elevator stops, doors on the ceiling open and he's helped out by a group of boys living in the Glade, surrounded by a Maze. Once a month a new boy arrives and once a week supplies come up the elevator. The furthest back anyone remembers is two years.

The day after Thomas arrives something unusual happens. The elevator opens again. This time, there's a girl inside.

As I've mentioned in previous teen reviews, there are two types of kid/teen books. Those you read and appreciate only as a youth and those that are equally good when you're an adult. I'd put the Maze Runner in the first category.

I'll start off with the positives, as my complaints contain spoilers to explain my points.

This is a great book for teen boys. As a loner in school I can sympathize with Thomas, both in his desire to learn more of what's going on as well as his need to keep his own counsel on matters of importance.

I especially liked how, despite the problems facing them, the boys set up a community that focuses on hard work and co-operation. Too often visions of boys in solitude show social break downs, pitting each one against the other or banding together in small violent groups (think: Lord of the Flies). In this book, when someone steps out of line they are dealt with. Violently. Not because the boys are incapable of other forms of justice (they have a jail cell) but because they can't afford the break down of order that could arise with rebellion or psychosis. In a tough situation they act with the good of the many in mind. And it works.

The glade was well planned, with the inhabitants utilizing specialized vocabulary to explain their existence and the problems facing them. It also allowed the author to have the kids use realistic language without filling the book with curses, which I thought was clever.

Now for the bad points - from an adult perspective. The Maze Runner is a book of questions. Thomas is teeming with them, and the reader is too. The problem is, no one knows the answers. While Thomas learns more about the glade and the maze, there's no one to answer the more important questions - what is the purpose of the glade/maze and why were these boys sent there. This is a series, with the idea that answers will be forthcoming in future books, but I found it frustrating that so little was revealed, even at the end of this book.

The book depends heavily on repetition. Thomas mentions several times how odd it is that he has memories of a life - movies, school, etc. - but can't remember faces or names of people and places. Another aspect is the repetition of information. Someone would mention something and a few paragraphs later someone else would ask about it. And sometimes the information is contradictory.

Potential Spoiler Alert (I'll make it as general as I can while explaining my point)

At the end of the novel a group of characters try a risky plan to escape the maze. They have to reach a certain place and type in a code. Doing so turns off the Grievers - the monsters that inhabit the maze. They know this, but afterwards someone questions what might have happened to those who remained behind and the consensus is that the Grievers got them despite the fact that the Grievers were turned off by the code.

End Spoiler Alert

But my biggest complaint was that I never liked any of the boys. There was nothing wrong with them besides being a bit annoying at times. They were all three dimensional characters, with good points and bad points. Unfortunately, we only see them through Thomas' eyes. And as Thomas' opinions of them changed, waffling between liking them and hating them, so too did mine as a reader. It meant that when people started dying at the end, I didn't care. That always disturbs me. Fictional or not, if the author is doing a good job I should feel something when someone dies.

Still, the book had enough positives that I'd recommend it for teen readers, if not necessarily their parents. The book has no sex, a little violence (mostly off screen) and lots of fake swearing.

This got really upsetting near the end. Still a good rood but I finally figured out the genre when I closed the book. Survivor-horror.

It's not a discover, i have already read it 2 times, one in French and one in English. But i couldn't say no when my friend offered me to buddy read it ! And i have NO REGRETS. Even though i already knew the book, it was still a real page-turner. Discovering the Glades, appreciating every shanks, a real beautiful experience. Some twists are predictables but it doesn't remove the stress we have through the book.

El Extraño Gato del Cuento

3.7

Con tanta adaptación es un poco difícil mantenerse al corriente, y eso de “Voy a leer la que esté más próxima” es ¡mentira! Porque se acerca otro estreno y quieres releerlo y no sabes qué hacer porque el tiempo te presiona, y entras en stress y quieres matar a todo el mundo...

Pero matar al mundo es lago que planearemos luego, ahora concentrémonos en The Maze Runner. ¡Adoro las distopías! Hay algo tan real en ellas, puedes sentirte muy metido en la historia y empezar con tus paranoias si es que no las tenías ya. Es hermoso.

El inicio es genial, son muy pocas las veces que un inicio me secuestra, pero este es tan directo. “Metal contra metal”, esa frase es tan claustrofóbica, algo en lo que todo el libro es experto.

Aunque la trama tarde un poquito en llegar a su rumbo, las cosas tienen que ser bien hechas para entenderlas. Los personajes muy completos, Dashner no solo nos da un nuevo mundo sino también un nuevo dialecto (Miertero, Shank, Plopus, esa última se volvió mi favorita) creado por esta mini sociedad en la que ellos viven.

Cuando llegué a la parte dónde “llega la chica” yo estaba como: “¿qué te pasa Dashner? O sea, las mujeres tenemos a complicar un poquito las cosas pero como que exageraste, ¿no crees?”, mi lado feminazi quería salir. La manera en la que tratan la llegada de la muchacha, y el mensaje que trae, me picó un poco.

Toda la cosa del laberinto parece un video juego, o como leí por ahí, es aceptar tomar la pastilla roja (Geek, nerds y cinéfilos entenderán), es que durante todo el libro la información se va dando de a poco, muy poco. Las teorías en la que el lector es experto en armar, surgen y surgen con cada final de capítulo.

El libro es un poco lento al principio como ya les dije, la cosa va tomando impulso de a poco, lo que a lectores como yo que le gusta lo rápido nos pueda a llegar a cansar. Pero les digo: Pónganle fé y sigan leyendo, me lo agradecerán. Porque, hombre, el epílogo me dejó con la piel de gallina. Ya sé que a los que no les gustó el libro podrán decir “¿leer todo un libro por un epílogo? pfff NO”. Yo les digo pues pff SÍ, el libro se lo merece.

Reseña Completa: El Extraño Gato del Cuento

Solo sé que al final me quedé así:

I think that this book is a bit on the slow side despite being a dystopia and that kind of made me lose the interest at the beginning. But then, at some point, it got better enough to make me wanna read it to the end.
I'd say it's an “okay” book, it isn't great and awesome, but it isn't bad either so... I guess, anyone who loves to read dystopias will like this book.

I felt that the beginning of the book was a little childish with too many ‘slang' references. Apart from that, the story keeps growing in quality, and the last 5 chapters of the book really increased my curiosity for what's to come in the other books.

The 3-star rating probably is a sign that maybe I'm no longer really fit to read many Young-Adult books. I kept thinking that if some things were thought and written with a more mature audience in mind, this book would be better. (This is also the reason for my praise to be more focused on the end of the book, where the plot is better crafted, and violence escalates.)

Easy to read, imaginative, with potential: Recommended.

This is a great YA novel if you are willing to overlook a few things.

First, the author made up several slang terms so that the characters could curse without actually cursing. It's pretty obvious what the substitutions are and can get annoying as it happens extremely frequently.

Second, there are more than a couple of times that a deus ex machina device is used to get out of a tight corner. I don't really want to spoiler more than that but if you consider that to be lazy writing this isn't the book for you.

Outside of those two items, I really enjoyed the book. It's fast paced and a relatively quick read.

Review :

http://mea-news.net/en/index.php/around-the-clock-2/1357-book-review-the-maze-runner

I really enjoyed this book. It was an instance of, “I need to stay up to see what happens!” situation, which in light of the recent book “swamps” I've been (voluntarily) wading through (I'm looking at you [b:Wither 8525590 Wither (The Chemical Garden, #1) Lauren DeStefano http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1311109085s/8525590.jpg 13392566] and especially you, [b:Halo 7778981 Halo (Halo, #1) Alexandra Adornetto http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1278885735s/7778981.jpg 10695325]) [b:Maze Runner 6186357 The Maze Runner (Maze Runner, #1) James Dashner http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320500235s/6186357.jpg 6366642] was a completely refreshing change.I loved that not all the information was dumped at the beginning, that we were still finding out new things near the end. I did not like how we were subjected to constant mood swings; while it was great for illustrating Thomas' anger, I grew a bit weary of “I was quiet, wanting to be alone. Suddenly, a wave of fury overcame me. I looked for food, I was suddenly ravenous.” all in one paragraph. I also did not like Teresa. I felt her presence was wholly unnecessary, and felt the story could have moved without her there. Overall, I really enjoyed [b:Maze Runner 6186357 The Maze Runner (Maze Runner, #1) James Dashner http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320500235s/6186357.jpg 6366642] and I will definitely be pursuing the others in this series!

I think readers either love or hate this story. I loved it. I love the characters and how the author manages to have SO MANY characters, yet still develop them and keep you from forgetting who's who. The story is unique and even though I don't think the series was well wrapped up, this first book is worth reading.

Having finished this book I'm left wondering what the hell did I just read? This book was awful! The characters were flat and there were inconsistencies in the plot line. I still don't understand why the damn maze was created or who made it and that's the only reason I pushed through and finished this book. I kept hoping the book would get better, but it never does! How is this a best seller? The writing style was beyond simplistic and the dialogue just sucked. Ok it was interesting to hear some new slang, I give the author points for that bit of creativity, but really....how did this get published?

This is much like hunger games. It has graphic descriptions of violent events. I'm glad I read it but I'm very hesitant on who I recommend it to, I'd only recommend to those who have a high tolerance for violence and gore. I did like the problem solving steps the characters went through, but a lot of it required extra-ordinary steps to solve the problems. I do like the compassion and the strength of the main character, he is very likeable.

I read this book to my son, and we both really enjoyed it. We are excited to see the movie in September.

Very low 3 stars