Skip to main content

The Maze Runner - Book Review





***** Spoiler Alert *****
Synopsis: 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.

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.


Spoiler Alert, once again, because if you plan on reading the books, you wouldn’t want the plot revealed. And, much of it won’t make much sense either. Rest is your call.
I’m not sure if I’d call it a review but it’s a fair representation of the thoughts that popped up after I finished the book today.

Okay, okay, okay, fast breathing. It’s the first (or maybe the second) page-turner book I’ve read and those are the thriller feels it gave me all through the while.

I had the library copy of the book and no doubt it wasn’t in perfect shape, I mean, not that I complain, it does equally good in serving its purpose as a book. The words matter more anyway. But, this isn’t applicable to any of my books that I lend you, alright? Besides, it’s not about my obsession to keep my book as perfect and as new as I bought it, so let’s get to the point.

The main protagonist Thomas looks a little different in my head unlike the actor Dylan O’Brien who plays the role of Thomas in the movie adaptation of the book. So did Chuck (more about Chuck later) and so does Teresa who are also imagined pretty differently from the movie actors. No, I haven’t seen the movies but only the book cover of the movie tie-in edition and the trailer of the movie.

Other characters – Minho, Alby, Newt, Gally – I don’t have a very clear picture of how they look in my head,  its difficult, I don’t know them by their imagined faces but I’ve got a fairly good idea of their personality and their disposition by their role in the first book.

The Glade was so perfectly designed, functioning exceptionally well. The Runners had their jobs, they even had a Council, all things in perfect flow. They managed to build a world in that square patch of land, a lotta smarties in there. But the arrival of Teresa literally turned the whole book around. And the maze code? It didn’t make much sense then, the random words, neither does it now, but at least it worked.

The point where Thomas went through the changing- it was impossible to put down the book from there on. Impossible.  

Chuck.

One word.

The worst part of the book. No, I can’t say it. Chuck. Aaa!!!
Do you know the feeling of being on fire? I guess you don’t. Neither do I. But I felt as if I were on fire when that dagger flew right into Chuck.

I hate the author for that. But then again, it’s a basic plot structure I’ve read quite often about: kill a dear character just when they achieve what they wanted most. It’s an advice to writers which reappears on my Pinterest feed every other day.

I’d suspected a major death in the book. I don’t know how but I could tell. It’s like when you’ve read  enough number of books – okay fine I’ll admit it – I think I saw it on some fandom picture (of the actors playing the characters) on Pinterest. But I wasn’t sure which character was it as I had no idea who played what character in the movies. Yeah, it’s really difficult to avoid spoilers when you use Pinterest ain’t it? But come on, anyone but Chuck!

Ugh! It’s a sweet torture.

Usually, before writing a book review, I think it over until it’s convincing enough. But this book got me into agreeing immediately.

I can’t believe I’ve picked up this book twice before and left is after a few chapters because it wasn’t interesting. But James Dashner is, no doubt, a writer whose words cast a spell, a thrilling one. Um, now that I’ve said it, it maybe isn’t a spell, cause they’re so close to reality. But I mean, is advanced currently-non-existent tech fantasy? Reality? Or science fiction? Whatever, the lines between different genres often gets blurry.

It was probably the first/second book that got me so bad that I was unable to put it down. Yes, it’s a thing. First one was The Girl On The Train – but I don’t remember it to be as exciting as this one. 

This was the only book for which I stayed up till 1.30 am on a school night for sure!
I don’t know what to call it or how to explain it but I was very much living the thrill. It’s a thing about books, a thing I love. Admittedly, I feel like I’ve been reading the wrong genre till now – young adult- but I guess I did fairly well making this the third book (non-young-adult-genre) I finished this month.

If you find this enthusiasm and passion for bookish worlds to be weird, I’m pretty sure you’re somebody who hasn’t read the book but chose to read the review anyway. I don’t mind that except, you gave the spoilers to yourself and well, I’m now living in the bookish world of The Maze Runner 
Book 2- The Scorch Trials anyway. Anybody minding isn’t going to change that.

Few questions bug me but I won’t pose them knowing that some people who read this might know the answers I wish to figure out myself.

Lastly, I mean to say it as a request, but it may sound rude. Nevertheless, I have to say it because it is incredibly important. If you’ve read the books, be a dear and keep the spoilers to yourself. We’ve got a lot of terrible people around anyway.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On The Annual Whirr Of Excitement

The annual whirr of excitement, as I just quoted it. In simple words, the excitement/fear/anxious feelings among all of us on entering our first board year, grade 10. There’s this whirr of excitement. It’s there every year, it’s there this time too. Although, I must say people are kind of reluctant and nobody was actually excited because as each year passed, the difficulty level, knowingly or unknowingly, shot up. But we were also keen on freeing ourselves from grade 9 so, I guess ultimately, it was inevitable. *Shrugs her shoulders* Every year we’re excited about new books, friends, hopefully more likeable and lenient teachers than last time, which makes up for most part of our worries before we begin our one year journey and we also hope that this one turns out to be better than the last one. Is this whirr going to last? Well, its annual actually, it comes, stays for some time and leaves. It lasts mostly for two to three weeks until the newness of everything sinks amongst

On The Occasion Of World Poetry Day

The thing I love about poems is that they mostly have hidden meanings between the lines. Things that only poets can see. Truths that only poets know. No decipherer can ever interpret the exact meaning of a poem. Not because he’s incapable, but only because poems are supposed to make actual sense to only those who write them. I haven’t read much poetry, in fact, you may say that I haven’t read any poetry at all if we’re talking about the famous poets. But poems really are extraordinary writings. They speak the language of truth. Spoken in such a deceiving manner that you don’t realize it at all, they might talk of feelings felt in the most realistic way possible. It isn’t laborious to sit down and read a poem, they’re that short. Rhyming in poems may sound like a thing for children’s poems but in reality, it piques everyone’s interest just as much. We often find ourselves relating to the things we read in poems. Some lines tend to cast such a spell on us that it’s difficult

On The Meaning Of Wisdom

What is the meaning of the word 'Wisdom'? Recently my nine (almost ten) year old sister asked me what is the meaning of the word ‘wisdom’? It took me sometime to figure out what meaning of wisdom would make sense to a fourth-grader. I mean, I knew the meaning all right, but somehow found it a little difficult to explain. Google says, the word ‘wisdom’ means the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgement; the quality of being wise. And wise means having or showing experience, knowledge and good judgement. This was okay but somehow felt difficult for a child to understand. I tried to simplify it in my way. I told her that it is a kind of knowledge that one gains from experiences. I simplified it further by saying that you grow wiser with time and you gain wisdom towards a particular thing or happening which you experienced. A person cannot be called wise by his intelligence only. It requires experience to become wise. I also made sure to check