| | |  | Amazon Kindle | Home » » » The Maze Runner (Maze Runner Trilogy, Book 1) | | | | | | | Description: | | When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his first name. His memory is blank. But he’s not alone. When the lift’s doors open, Thomas finds himself surrounded by kids who welcome him to the Glade—a large, open expanse surrounded by stone walls.
Just like Thomas, the Gladers don’t know why or how they got to the Glade. All they know is that every morning the stone doors to the maze that surrounds them have opened. Every night they’ve closed tight. And every 30 days a new boy has been delivered in the lift.
Thomas was expected. But the next day, a girl is sent up—the first girl to ever arrive in the Glade. And more surprising yet is the message she delivers.
Thomas might be more important than he could ever guess. If only he could unlock the dark secrets buried within his mind.
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Average Customer Review:
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136 of 166 found the following review helpful:
 Decent Read Though Not Very Thought ProvokingAug 26, 2009
By Jarucia Jaycox Nirula
"~A Pink American"
I first heard about this book at an SCWBWI conference where its editor from Delacorte spoke highly of how it grabbed her attention right away.
I have to agree. The one thing that Dashner does right from start to finish is barely provide enough information to answer the questions that form in the reader's mind BUT what information he gives does promote one to keep reading.
Curiosity drove me to read this book straight through...that and the fact that the writing wasn't all that challenging.
I'm not trying to bag on Dashner, but I was a little surprised at the many passed-on opportunities he had to draw me further into the story or even care more about the characters' fates .
I felt consistently disappointed with what I was offered of Thomas's character -- far too sulky and desirous of screaming at people who can hardly offer him the answers, etc. he's so desperate for. And Teresa, for as important as she's made out to be, is so flat. I think it was well within the author's scope to improve the depth of these characters considering the decent job he did on secondary characters like Chuck and Minho.
By the time I reached the end, I all but rolled my eyes. I felt roughly the same as I did when I finished watching 'The Cube'...interesting story, but what was the point of putting the characters through all that? Especially when the characters themselves hardly spend any real time trying to understand their situation. And this latter part actually seems quite critical to the purpose of the situation they're in.
Okay, I know this is meant to be YA but it certainly had room to grow in the 'thought provoking' department. It's a decent and entertaining story, but will it become the topic of critical academic discussion? Not likely.
It's far too light in depth and development as it stands. Perhaps the eventual trilogy as a whole will provide something 'more'.
50 of 59 found the following review helpful:
Great idea, weak charactersNov 17, 2009
By Laurel
A hundred or so teenage boys, their memories wiped, are trapped in the center of a gigantic shifting maze, many miles across. As the book begins, Thomas arrives in the "Glade" -- the center of the maze, where they all live. The next day the first girl ever shows up too. And everything begins to change.
While living in the center of a giant ever-changing maze full of monsters is an extremely odd way to live, the boys have made do. After two years, they have a ruling council, they grow food, raise animals, and look after any sick or injured. They also send out trained runners to map the maze every day, in search of an exit, or a pattern, or some clue as to what they're doing here.
With the arrival of Thomas and the girl, the Gladers' carefully-crafted order begins to break down. Now solving and escaping the maze is immediately necessary. Fortunately, Thomas isn't quite like all the other Gladers, and is able to help.
The premise is great, and the plot moves well. There's a lot of action and the tension constantly builds. Unfortunately, the story failed in two important aspects for me.
First, the the maze itself is so absurd, the final explanation had better be pretty impressive for the story to hang together. And at least for me, the explanation was not plausible. Though, at least there *is* an explanation, which is more than can be said for some stories I've encountered!
The second weakness was the characters. I'd be okay with a somewhat implausible scenario if the characters were likable enough. But, Thomas is bland and whiny, and his only moments of greatness arise from his forgotten past. The other boys are mostly hostile and uninteresting. Not, mind you, that I expect deep, sophisticated personalities from amnesiac teenage boys! They were all believable, but they weren't compelling enough to carry the story. Neither was the new girl very interesting. Thomas is attracted to her, but again, that's an artifact of his past, not a real live reaction that we get to watch develop.
Overall, it was a fun read, and I don't regret the time spent, but I won't look for the sequels.
33 of 40 found the following review helpful:
 Fabulous Read!Jul 24, 2009
By Julie Wright
"jules"
The Maze Runner kept me up to the wee hours of the morning as I raced to the finish. I loved it in every way: the pacing, the characters, the plot. Thomas wakes up to find himself in a box that opens up to the glade, the central part of an elaborate maze where monsters dwell. From the moment of Thomas's entrance into the glade, he works to try and recover any part of his memory while also trying to solve the maze and stop the deaths of the boys who live in the Maze with him. I would say this book is a cross between Ender's Game and Lord of the Flies. It's a tale that is expertly woven, true to the target audience of teen boys, and filled with enough action to keep me up all night. The only downfall of the book was realizing I have to wait for the sequel. I look forward to reading more of Dashner's work.
47 of 60 found the following review helpful:
 My high hopes have been broken....Apr 04, 2010
By A. Boston
Lately, I've been really into the YA dystopian books. I blindly picked up The Hunger Games last summer and loved it. I've since read Forest of Hands and Teeth, Birthmarked, Adoration of Jenna Fox, The Host, and a few others, all of which I enjoyed. I like stories that are not noticeably YA, except maybe for the absence of vulgarities and sex. It was very obvious to me that The Maze Runner was a YA book, which for some, may not matter. But for me, it lacked the depth and intricacies that make or breaks a story.
I was absolutely excited for The Maze Runner after reading the Amazon reviews, but this is the very first time I've been so sorely disappointed when picking up a book due to other reviewers' enthusiasm. I had a hard time getting through The Maze Runner. There were a few times it interested me to keep reading, but for the most part I could only read it for a 1/2 hour at a time, when usually I could read for hours on end. Towards the middle I started skimming and reading dialogue to push myself through the bland writing.
I wasn't emotionally invested in any of the characters, and had a really tough time picturing a lot of it, especially the grievers, which I blame on the writing. The new words to substitute for swears were annoying, and the characters very flat. I thought the ending was predictable and lackluster. This book might really work for some but I really, really didn't like it at all.
9 of 10 found the following review helpful:
An author more lost than his characters?Oct 04, 2010
By Bookgirl
"Bookgirl"
After completing the Hunger Games trilogy, I was eager for another great YA dystopian read but did not find it in The Maze Runner. I was initially intrigued by the book's description. I knew there would be boys caught in a maze, with their memories wiped and little hope for escape, and I knew that the appearance of a girl on the scene would change everything. Mazes, games, riddles, and other sorts of non-traditional mysteries attract me, but Dashner's execution of his book did not.
The plot was ill-paced. At times it felt slow, because Dashner introduced the reader to the maze in the same way the main character, Thomas, was introduced to it: both the reader and Thomas learn almost everything through numerous secondary explanations by characters. In more skilled hands, this might be an effective way of immersing a reader in a fictional world. Dashner's exposition, however, felt cumbersome. As a reader, if I'm going to be told about a world rather than shown it, I'd better be told well. When I wasn't slogging through Dashner's writing, I was tumbling head-over-heels down its textual cliffs. Parts of the novel simply moved too quickly for any real character or plot development to occur. Readers are barely introduced to the main protagonist before being introduced to Teresa, the girl who supposedly changes everything. We really have very little sense for what's changing, because this inciting action comes so shortly after our encounter with Thomas.
The plot also felt as if it had been constructed with little forethought. Each step or twist in the plot seemed as if it were generated on the spot as the author wrote his way linearly through this novel. Shazam! Such and such happens out of the blue. A quick patch-up of missing explanation ensues. Shazam! The next twist happens, followed by some explanation. And so on, until one of the biggest Shazams!: The crew exits the maze and suddenly, for no apparent reason, one of their members is killed. Subtle build-up of suspense and intricately interwoven plots do not exist in this novel. It's almost entirely composed of sudden action followed by explanatory reaction.
All this might not matter so much, if I'd felt in any way connected to the characters. But I didn't. Most of the boys meshed together in my brain, particularly since so many of them end up acting "out of character" anyway. As for Teresa and Thomas, readers know little about their back-story (until the peritextual "Exclusive Wicked Correspondence" at the end), and I didn't find their characters all that complex, deep, relatable, or quirky (aside from their obvious telepathic skill). Character "complexity" in this novel was little more than character "unpredictability."
In short, I was disappointed. The reason I gave the book 2 stars instead of 1, though, is because I did at least finish it. I've no intention of reading the sequel, however.
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