“This is a book I read for a book club that I help out with at a local middle school.
I just felt that I should add that in because, being such an advocate of not finishing books that you donât love, I thought I should explain why I finished a book that I didnât love.
The story is pretty simple, a bunch of kids trapped in a giant maze for no apparent reason. It reads like a sort of cross between Lord of the Flies, Battle Royale, and the Hunger Games.
The thing to not like about this book is that all of the plot points come out way before they are executed.
For example, the main character wants to be a Maze Runner (not too important to explain, but theyâre just the people in the maze with the coolest job). But instead of just becoming a maze runner, the first third of the book shows him doing other jobs, screwing around, and pining about how he should be a maze runner, how he somehow knows deep down that heâs meant to be a maze runner.
Alright, well just be a damn maze runner already. As a reader, I wasnât absorbed with the story enough to ignore everything going on and flow with the story. Okay, the book is called the maze runner, the kid wants to be a maze runner, and all the excitement seems to be with the maze runners. Somehow, I think heâs going to be a maze runner, so get to it. It would be like titling a book, âDetective Wabashâs First Caseâ and then spending the first third of the book with a cop named Wabash who really wants to be a detective for no discernible reason, nor is there any reason for him not to be a detective, and only after some serious work does he become a detective and start in on the story.
I had a roommate who started watching the show 24, and after a couple seasons he did a pretty accurate impression of the showâs main flaw, which consisted of yelling, âNo time to explain!â and then cutting to commercial. This book felt a little like that, like there was a lot of information you could feel the author purposely withholding. It felt more like the characters were engaging the author than the story, badgering until he finally gave in and gave them a revelation.
Also, it ends on a complete non-ending, setting you up for the second book. So again, knowing that before I finished, I wouldnât have gone all the way through just to get to an unsatisfactory ending. Plus, the second book just came out a month ago, so god knows how long you would have to wait for the third, and alleged final, part of the series.
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