The Maze Runner

Author: James Dashner
Pages: 384
Lexile: 770
Genre: Dystopia
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

This book is the first book in a trilogy.

The Maze Runner by James Dashner is a very interesting and exciting novel. This book takes place in a future dystopian society, and goes under the genre of science fiction. The setting of the book plays a major part in the plot, “the maze”. All of the characters reside in an area in the center of the maze called “the glade”. The maze is inescapable, as far as the “gladers” know. The main character, Thomas, is a teen boy who, like all other gladers, came into the maze with no knowledge of himself other than his name. Because of this, Thomas spends much of the beginning of the book confused and wondering what he’s supposed to do. He wants to help the gladers out of the maze, and is willing to do anything to do so, even though he doesn’t have any idea how. In the start of the book, Thomas is arriving in the glade, confused as ever. The other gladers spend days attempting to explain to him what was going on, or at least as much as they know. Just when Thomas has begun to adjust to the glade, strange things start to happen. Someone new is brought into the glade, claiming they know Thomas in some way. This makes Thomas more confused and curious about this place, if that was even possible. Throughout the book, Thomas goes through many struggles and adventures as he tried to find out who he is and what he’s going to do about his situation. One thing I really enjoyed about this book was the character development. As I mentioned before, Thomas starts out as nearly nothing, and as he makes more decisions and learns more, he slowly becomes a hero to those around him and himself. One thing I didn’t like about the book was the lack of closure at the end, but it did a good job making me want to read the rest of the series. Overall, the book was a rather fast read that I enjoyed. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in sci-fi dramas, or books like The Hunger Games or Divergent.

Contributed by Cassie Beisheim