The Maze Runner by James Dashner: Review

Title: The Maze Runner
Author: James Dashner
Publisher: Chicken House
Buy this book: Amazon / Book Depository

If you ain’t scared, you ain’t human.
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.
Nice to meet ya, shank. Welcome to the Glade.
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.
Everything is going to change.
Then a girl arrives. The first girl ever. And the message she delivers is terrifying.
Remember. Survive. Run

Warning: This is more rant than review. I couldn't help myself. If you like the book then it's probably best to just click off this review right now. It's not going to be pretty. 

My feelings in one gif:

I first wrote my straight after finishing the book, which was a mistake. It was 100% more rant than review, which is never a good thing. So I have tried to tone it down a little. But, if you follow the blog at all, you'll know that I don't really hold back when I review books. If I love it then I am going to full on gush, if I hate it then I am going to full on rant.


I have some important questions to ask. 1.What the actual f**k did I just read? 2. How in the world does this have an average rating of 4.02 on Goodreads? I'm sorry to everyone that loved the book, but I honestly don't understand all the love and praise that this book gets. If I was only allowed to pick one word to describe this book then I would pick terrible. Everything about it seemed terrible to me, from the plot to the characters, from the pacing to the general writing. The part that depresses me the most is the fact that this could have been an amazing book if someone else had written it. 

What I would have been like if I was Thomas.

I didn't hate the book in the beginning, I was actually quite enjoying it. The mystery element to it keeps you reading and wanting to know what will happen next. Thomas arrives in the Glade with absolutely no memories of who he is and where he come from, the only thing he knows is his name. He's not alone though, he's met by a group of teenage boys who all arrived in the Glade the same way. Some have been there for two years and they have yet to figure out a way to get out of the Maze that surrounds the Glade. Thomas learns about Grievers, which I can't even begin to describe because I still don't understand what they are supposed to look like, who are apparently scary and a risk to everyone. I was kept reading by the fact I wanted answers, I wanted to find out why Thomas and the other boys were in the Maze. I needed to know how they got out and I needed to know why they were there in the first place.

My first issue with the book, and an issue I know a lot of other people had, was the awful slang that the boys use. It's never really explained why they come up with the slang? That is a question I would like answered. Who thought klunk was a good word to use instead of s**t? Who thought that shuck would be an insulting word to call someone? Those people are stupid, the words are irritating and they were ruining my reading experience. These are teenage boys, not five year olds. Just say s**t! Every time I saw the word klunk, I just had to see it as s**t in my head, otherwise it would actually have caused me to DNF. Stupid shucks!

The next issue I had was that the mystery element to the book starts to wear very thin. Mainly because no one will tell Thomas anything. That is frustrating for Thomas of course, but it's absolutely infuriating to have to read. There's no reason for them not to just tell Thomas everything when he arrives, instead it's drip fed to him over the course of the whole book. Key things are told to him slowly as a way to move the plot along. But it all feels really pointless, why couldn't they just tell him everything when he arrived. Instead they keep telling him to shut up and stop asking questions.

The maze itself has so little mystery to it and isn't very scary, I didn't understand why the kids made such a big deal out of it. The Grievers rarely come out during the day and the doors to the maze close at night so they can't get them. The maze itself contains nothing but walls, some of which move at night and then the Grievers. That's it. Nothing else. How dull! The trailer for the film made it all seem so much scarier than that, so I was pretty disappointed. The Grievers were the worst monster baddies I have come across as well, they're not scary. Was anyone scared of them? I kept trying to picture them in my head but it just resulted in me laughing. I even had to look at fan art to try and get some idea and it was just how I had imagined it in my head. That just got me laughing harder.

Characters are really important to me, if I don't feel anything for the characters then it makes it hard for me to enjoy the book. The Maze Runner was a book where the action seemed to take number one spot and everything else didn't matter. There wasn't much character growth to Thomas and the other characters just felt one dimensional. There were a lot of characters that I wanted to know more about or see more of, but it never really happened. Thomas himself was a disappointment because we're mostly told how he feels and never really shown it. I really hate stories that are all tell and no show.

The book was going really well until Thomas had to spend a night in the maze. That's when it all began to fall apart. A girl enters the maze and that throws in an element that I wasn't expecting and just left me quite confused. Then as the book goes on we see more and more plot holes arise and that always bugs me. The most glaringly obvious being the fact that we are shown at one point that the Grievers can climb. But they never climb over the maze walls at night, which they could easily do, and then kill anyone. See what I mean, those guys just aren't scar and don't seem like a real threat to the people of the Glade.

When the reason for the maze is finally revealed.

I continued to the end of the book because I needed answers. I had to know why they were in the maze and what the point of it was. Well I made it to the end, I got my answers and they didn't make any sense. Honestly, I still don't understand the point of it all. I'm going to have to go into some spoilers here so if you want to read just highlight it. I'm supposed to believe they put the best and the brightest in the maze and yet it took them two years and one guy showing up for them to actually get out the maze. Clearly they're not that bright. And how does the maze prepare them to come out and do anything about the flare. Are you serious?!? They have been doing nothing for two years other than running around a maze and calling each other shuck-faces. I also need to comment on the fact that Teresa was the most boring character. She just shows up and can conveniently has a telepathic link to Thomas, thus allowing her to reveal certain things about the maze to him. 

2/5 Butterflies

I was going to give this a 3/5, but the more I thought about the book the more angry I got. I felt cheated by the time I reached the end of the book. I'd read the whole thing so that I could finally get some answers and then the answers I got were just dumb. I got 0 character development and  didn't really come to care about any of them. I didn't even blink when characters started dying. This book isn't ridiculously awful, I'd probably recommend it to younger kids. But if you're a lot older and have read any decent dystopians then I honestly wouldn't be recommending it. There are much better stories out there with a lot more to offer. Even the cliffhanger style ending wasn't enough to make me at all interested in reading the rest of the series.

I spoke to my sister about the book. I bought her the trilogy last Christmas and she read it. She said she quite liked the first book, though she did admit the writing wasn't too great. She told me that the second one was hard to get through and she had to DNF the final book because she just couldn't finish. This makes me feel better about continuing, especially since she said the plot holes just get bigger and the answers you get aren't satisfying.