The Maze Runner - Book Review

German Cover (I read this one)

Original (English) Cover

Woot! My first book review is finally here. I’m going to give you some base information first and then follow up with the actual review.

Alright let’s jump straight in then… The title of the novel is the Maze Runner and it was written by James Dashner. It is the first in a YA dystopian series and it tells us the story of Thomas and his friends. In 2014 it will be out on the big screen with Dylan O’Brien playing the lead role.

If you haven’t read it yet, here is a brief SYNOPSIS: Thomas wakes up in an elevator remembering nothing but his name. When he gets out of it he arrives in a strange place called the Glade which is surrounded by gigantic walls. He tries to find out where exactly he is but the boys (Gladers) living in the Glade won’t answer him properly. Despite that he then finds out that they are in the middle of a giant maze filled with deathly creatures and that their purpose is to solve it and escape. The Gladers have been trying to escape for about two years and soon after Thomas arrival things go crazy and their time starts to run out.

Ok, now that we have the basics let’s start reviewing. I’ll split this part up in several categories. It is spoiler free and you should be okay reading it even if you haven’t read the book yet.

First I’d like to talk about the STORY. I think that the basic idea and the world setting are great and exciting. I also enjoyed that James Dashner let us discover what was going on at the same time as Thomas did. That way new events weren’t always predictable and it was interesting to start a story knowing absolutely nothing about the society or the world outside the maze. I sometimes felt though that the planning of the story wasn’t executed properly. I got that feeling because there were contradicting actions happening within one page and generally some development didn’t take place very steadily but just happened from one second to the other.

My next topic is the Characters. To me all the boys seemed two have almost the same personality. All of them were somewhat unfriendly and harsh. Also their ability to have a conversation without mildly offending their counterpart seemed to have been lost in the maze. The only ones that I kind of grew to like were Chuck and Minho. They are also the ones who were a bit more lively and likeable.

The third point I’d like to discuss is the Writing Style. For me it was kind of hard to get used to because the style was somehow distant and unfriendly despite the fact that we see everything from Thomas POV. Due to that I couldn’t totally connect to the characters and the story and it really bothered me because I didn’t genuinely cared about the people in the book and I like to do that. Then Mr. Dashner also invented some kind of slang for the Gladers which was really annoying because it wasn’t used consistently and seemed very unnecessary. That brings me to what bothered me the most about the writing style of the book. The author wrote so repetitive which is the most UNNERVING thing in a novel EVER!!! At the beginning Thomas just went on and on and on about how sick he felt, then he was constantly complaining about how frustrated he was when no one gave him answers and it just never really stoped with the repetitions. Generally I felt like James Dashner or the person who translated the book did not have the biggest vocabulary.  

Ok, so now we have my Overall Opinion. Despite the fact that I had issues with the writing style and the character development I really enjoyed the story and finding out more about the world Thomas lives in. That is also what encouraged me to finish the book and kept me excited. I rated the book a 2.5 out of 5 stars. At the moment I’m not sure if I’m going to continue the series or not. If I do I might pick up one of the sequels in English, so I can see if that solves the issues with the writing style.

I would recommend you to read this book if you like a different tone in the story telling and don’t really care about the writing style. Also if you’re into Dystopian series totally give this one a go it might not be the Hunger Games or Divergent but it is still pretty interesting. And otherwise you can still go and watch the movie next year :P