Review-The Maze Runner
Okay, well, if you haven't picked up on me saying it over and over, I really loved this book.
A very quick and dirty summary would be a bunch of teenaged boys are forced to live in a maze where monsters come out at night to kill them. That intrigued me enough to pick it up, but it ends up being much more than that. The mood is like if The Hunger Games and Ender's Game had a baby. There is a lot of mystery surrounding their circumstances, and a looming sense of doom as that mystery unfolds. The action in the book is wonderful, too. The "fight" scenes are tension filled, weighty...you always feel like you have something to lose, and you never feel safe, never feel like everything's going to be okay, so every good, happy moment is well and truly fought for.
Going straight from one book to another, it's impossible not to compare them, and like I compared Matched's Cassia to City of Bone's Clary, I find myself comparing....maybe not the plot of the latter, but the writing to The Maze Runner. Whereas City of Bones was predictable plot point after predictable plot point, I found that I really was never sure where we were going to go with The Maze Runner. It didn't rely on jump scare style plot twists, either-just had a plot that slowly unfolded in a way where it could have gone in any direction.
The visuals in the book are fantastic, and I really hope that the movie does it justice. I do imagine that it's going to translate well, though. I just searched out some stills on IMDB, and it's looking pretty good, but none of them are showing the "good" stuff. ^_^
If I had to come up with some negatives, I would say that there are a couple reveals that...well, they're basically revealed a while back, and so by the time we get to the reveal, it's like...yeah. You totally told me that already. Why are you surprised? Seriously, YOU'RE the one that told ME. Were you not paying attention? That's really just the one, though, and by the time they get to that, the shit's hitting the fan, so you're like "whatever, fine, what's going to happen next!?" The other issue is, as seems to be the case in every book I've read so far, the first 3 chapters. Once you get to chapter 4, you're fine, but the first 3 chapters are obnoxious as shit, no lie. The biggest issue is the slang they use. It's thrown at you like an angry monkey flinging feces pretty much nonstop for the first few chapters, until you just want to kick someone in the head. But then it calms down, you get used to it, and the plot kicks in, and it's fine. But be forewarned.
So the end. I'm not going to give the end away, but to go a little bit more in depth with the plot, we've got this society of teenagers trying to survive within the maze and find their way out of the maze. And once they get out of the maze, the plan is to confront the people who put them there and figure out what's going on with the world. Again, without going into specifics, I found it both very satisfying, much more moving than the last book I read, and also very much looking forward to continuing with the series. For a moment, I was reminded a little of The Hunger Games in that I was like "Okay...so what are the next two books going to be about?" at the end of this one...and then came the epilogue. And it's like, "Here. We shall end the book with one big giant reveal. Okay, have fun!" So yeah, definitely making me want more. I feel like I could really learn a thing or two from this author.
Now the question is, where next? Do I find another book that's going to be made into a movie soon? Do I continue on with the Matched Series? Or do I find more books in the Maze Runner series? Or do I go reread Catching Fire? When is that one coming out? Oh, but how can I reread when there are so many things I haven't read yet? I think it'll be the next Matched book for now, just because I have that, I own it, and I don't have to worry about getting it. But I totally need to look into getting more Maze Runner series...
A very quick and dirty summary would be a bunch of teenaged boys are forced to live in a maze where monsters come out at night to kill them. That intrigued me enough to pick it up, but it ends up being much more than that. The mood is like if The Hunger Games and Ender's Game had a baby. There is a lot of mystery surrounding their circumstances, and a looming sense of doom as that mystery unfolds. The action in the book is wonderful, too. The "fight" scenes are tension filled, weighty...you always feel like you have something to lose, and you never feel safe, never feel like everything's going to be okay, so every good, happy moment is well and truly fought for.
Going straight from one book to another, it's impossible not to compare them, and like I compared Matched's Cassia to City of Bone's Clary, I find myself comparing....maybe not the plot of the latter, but the writing to The Maze Runner. Whereas City of Bones was predictable plot point after predictable plot point, I found that I really was never sure where we were going to go with The Maze Runner. It didn't rely on jump scare style plot twists, either-just had a plot that slowly unfolded in a way where it could have gone in any direction.
The visuals in the book are fantastic, and I really hope that the movie does it justice. I do imagine that it's going to translate well, though. I just searched out some stills on IMDB, and it's looking pretty good, but none of them are showing the "good" stuff. ^_^
If I had to come up with some negatives, I would say that there are a couple reveals that...well, they're basically revealed a while back, and so by the time we get to the reveal, it's like...yeah. You totally told me that already. Why are you surprised? Seriously, YOU'RE the one that told ME. Were you not paying attention? That's really just the one, though, and by the time they get to that, the shit's hitting the fan, so you're like "whatever, fine, what's going to happen next!?" The other issue is, as seems to be the case in every book I've read so far, the first 3 chapters. Once you get to chapter 4, you're fine, but the first 3 chapters are obnoxious as shit, no lie. The biggest issue is the slang they use. It's thrown at you like an angry monkey flinging feces pretty much nonstop for the first few chapters, until you just want to kick someone in the head. But then it calms down, you get used to it, and the plot kicks in, and it's fine. But be forewarned.
So the end. I'm not going to give the end away, but to go a little bit more in depth with the plot, we've got this society of teenagers trying to survive within the maze and find their way out of the maze. And once they get out of the maze, the plan is to confront the people who put them there and figure out what's going on with the world. Again, without going into specifics, I found it both very satisfying, much more moving than the last book I read, and also very much looking forward to continuing with the series. For a moment, I was reminded a little of The Hunger Games in that I was like "Okay...so what are the next two books going to be about?" at the end of this one...and then came the epilogue. And it's like, "Here. We shall end the book with one big giant reveal. Okay, have fun!" So yeah, definitely making me want more. I feel like I could really learn a thing or two from this author.
Now the question is, where next? Do I find another book that's going to be made into a movie soon? Do I continue on with the Matched Series? Or do I find more books in the Maze Runner series? Or do I go reread Catching Fire? When is that one coming out? Oh, but how can I reread when there are so many things I haven't read yet? I think it'll be the next Matched book for now, just because I have that, I own it, and I don't have to worry about getting it. But I totally need to look into getting more Maze Runner series...