The Maze Runner - Book Review
From page one, the novel is a gripping, adrenalin-pumping, roller-coaster of an adventure in a dystopian science fiction setting. The protagonist, Thomas, finds himself in a metallic box that brings him to the Glade, a sort of an encampment in the middle of a massive, unsolvable maze.
If you've guessed correctly that the Maze is a dangerous place inhabited by blood-thirsty creatures that are half-animal and half-machine, you're right. The Grievers always come out at night and sometimes during the day too. The Gladers, boys between twelve to seventeen years old, have established "order" to survive. They grow vegetables, rear animals for slaughter, build residential structures, bury their dead and they run. The best of the best become the Runners, who go into the dangerous maze each day, every day to find a way out, a way back into the normal world where Mom and Dad and normal things like school, friends and vacations are waiting for them.
Unfortunately for Thomas and the fellow Gladers, things keep going from bad to worse until they culminate in a finale in which the Gladers go head-to-head against the Grievers and (sort of) escape.
[SPOILERS AHEAD]
Except they don't. This is the most sucky part of the novel, but I'll come to it later.
First, the positives. This novel is unputdownable. If this is your genre, you will not be able to put down the novel and may go without sleep for a night or two (I finished it in two days). The chapters and short and punchy and make for quick reading. There are twists and turns everywhere and it is almost hard to guess what will happen next. The writing is fresh and powerful and makes it easy to visualize the scenes. As this is the first book in the series, it ends with a lot of questions unanswered, which might make you eager to pick up the next book.
The dystopian world has been set up well with many specifics. The antagonists (the Griever) are unique and I already look forward to see how they look in the movie. I like the depth of the thinking behind creating this world and its rules.
The negatives: The characters are under-developed. Very under-developed. I understand that pace is the requirement of this genre, but if the author had interspersed some character-building scenes every 20-30 pages or so, the novel would've made a much better read. If I don't care about the characters, I don't care about the story. I was reading the novel, but as a reader, I wasn't emotionally invested in it due to the weak characterization. It would've been SO SO much better with stronger characters and more complex relationships between the characters. There wasn't much happening there.
The ending was a downer. You'll know once you read the book. It felt like a fake ending like the readers were fooled to believe that Thomas and his friends have escaped when actually it was a just big gimmick of the Creators, who wanted the Maze Trials to end and begin with the next set of trials (sorry Thomas, it isn't the sweet ending you were hoping for). If I compare the ending with a similar novel, The Hunger Games (book 1), the ending of that novel, where Katniss and Peeta actually defeat the Capitol in book 1, it's an actual victory. Of course, things get complicated after that, which makes the story for the subsequent books but the first novel actually ends with a victory for the protagonist. Whereas in the Maze Runner, the climax is shown as a victory, but during the last few pages, we realize it was just a faux victory, which felt like cheating really. And readers never like to be cheated.
Overall, I would recommend this novel and rate it as 4 stars out of 5. I'm not sure if I would read the subsequent novels though.
https://www.amazon.in/Maze-Runner-James-Dashner/dp/9351033139
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