The Maze Runner Review

This was a project for school so here it is. (P.S. This contains spoilers so if you intend to read the book or see the movie, I advise you not to read on.)
In the thrilling post-apocalyptic novel, The Maze Runner, by James Dashner, it tells the story of a young boy named Thomas who woke up without any memory of his past in a place he’s never seen before. The plot of the story is very well developed throughout the book, every little bit and piece coming together in the end. Thomas trapped in a place called the Glade, a large grass field surrounded by towering stone walls with young boys who also have no recollection of their pasts. There is no authority in the Glade, except for the boys who are brave enough to step forward and try to organize the group and protect them from the malicious creatures that live beyond the walls...in the Maze. The Maze is an ever changing labyrinth filled with all sorts of danger and unknown creatures. The boys who are brave enough to venture into the Maze during the day, the Runners, try to map and solve the Maze for their escape. When Thomas comes, everything changes. Supplies stop coming, people start going insane, and the weirdest of all, the first girl to ever arrive is half in a coma and she somehow knows Thomas. He has a strange connection with both her and the Glade but has no idea why. All he knows is that he must be a Runner, and he will solve the Maze.

The themes in this gripping story are eerie, mostly mystery and death, “Such a display of death - how could it be considered a victory?” (Dashner 348). The children in the Glade have lost many, some due to their own minds, but most to the deadly maze and the creatures that reside in it. During their many attempts at escape, they’ve lost too many to count, and when they finally succeed, they realize how many they’ve lost, and some wonder they truly are free. The mystery that plagues this novel is intriguing, due to the fact that you want to know what’s happening just as much as the characters in the story do. You want to know where they came from, why they’re here, who they were, who’s doing this, and if they’re ever get out. The lack of memory that the children have is infuriating because you are always on the edge of your seat, wondering when everything would come together. Why does everyone who remembers anything about their past hate Thomas? Who wiped their memories? “He wished for all the world he could remember something about his previous life. Anything. His mom, his dad, a friend, his school, a hobby. A girl” (Dashner 21). Only one thing could bring back some of their memories but it would force them into excruciating pain, they would have to get stung by one of the terrible creatures in the Maze, a Griever, and go through the Changing.

The structure of the novel is standard, but in relatively short chapters that make it easier to breeze through the book. Also, every chapter ended with a hook, making you want to push through the next chapter despite how late it is. The entirety of the book is written in third person limited. It was mainly focused on Thomas, we knew his thoughts and actions, but it never spoke through him in the first person. This was interesting because the narration was only partially subjective, we were able to see what Thomas thought, but we were still able to develop our own opinions on the characters. Because this novel was written in a style much like my own, I believe it was more likeable to me and allowed me to read it relatively quickly. The language in the novel ranges from a sentence containing nothing but slang, to sophisticated metaphors and similes to make a point. Much of the figurative language is used to describe the memory loss that the children in the Glade experience, “His memory loss was strange. He mostly remembered the workings of the world—but emptied of specifics, faces, names. Like a book completely intact but missing one word in every dozen, making it a miserable and confusing read. He didn't even know his age” (Dashner 15). This compares the memory loss to a book with missing words. Also, “It was just so… weird. He remembered lots of little things about life—eating, clothes, studying, playing, general images of the makeup of the world. But any detail that would fill in the picture to create a true and complete memory had been erased somehow. It was like looking at an image through a foot of muddy water” (Dashner 33). This compares it to trying to look through murky water. This use of language and structure helps us interpret the novel in the way the author wants us to, showing us the story how it is supposed to be seen.

The characters throughout the story were relatively strong, they all had some sort of personality and flaw, but they weren’t very dynamic. The lack of knowledge of what they were before they were put into the Glade contributes to this because without a place to start, we are unable to see them change. Some of the characters were barely in depth, but they were not essential to the plot so they did not need to be. One of the characters, Chuck, a small, 12 year old boy who quickly became friends with Thomas is a character that we are able to see a little change in. At the beginning of the novel, he is some-what smug that he has been entrusted with the task of welcoming Thomas to the Glade but later, we are able to see his insecurities as things in the Glade begin to go awry. We see that he is afraid and sad, he misses whatever family he used to have and just wants to be safe. Thomas promises to get him there. Another character, Newt, one of the leaders in the Glade, is sort of bipolar. One second, he’ll be laughing with Thomas and offering to take him under his wing, and another, he’ll be telling him to shut up and get lost, “Turned this whole place upside down, you bloody shank” (Dashner 150). Newt has a very comedic attitude, but he can become extremely serious in a matter of seconds. The characters in this story are pretty well developed, but I would’ve liked to see a little more depth.

Overall, I believe that The Maze Runner, by James Dashner, is a very intriguing and exciting novel that is a joy to read. It is simple enough for a young teenager to read but interesting and sophisticated enough for all adult readers to enjoy. Though apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic novels are common now among bookshelves, I believe that this is definitely one of the top contenders in it’s genre. If you love novels that will keep you on the edge of your seat, your heart pounding, and your eyes straining for more, than I strongly recommend this book.