Guest Book Review: The Maze Runner by James Dashner (@jamesdashner)

The Maze Runner (The Maze Runner #1) by James Dashner
Publication Date: October 6, 2009
Published: Delacorte Press
Reviewer: Marc

My Rating:

"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.
Then a girl arrives. The first girl ever. And the message she delivers is terrifying.

After hearing that The Maze Runner would be turned into a movie I decided I must read the book first. I like to imagine the world before seeing it on screen. After reading it I now cannot wait to see it when it comes out.

Imagine waking up in a lift elevator. You have your basic functioning life knowledge but no memories. That’s what begins our main character’s story. Thomas is his name and that is all he and we as readers know about him. The box opens to a bunch of other boys in a place they call the Glade, which is a large field area with four giant walls around it. Only those walls are not your typical walls but the walls of a giant maze. Throughout the book we learn more about Thomas’ surroundings and past as he and the others called “Gladers” try to decipher the maze and escape their fenced in prison, which is tough as the maze walls move every night. When the only girl arrives to the Glade, things get mighty interesting. I won’t go further and spoil the book for others but the story is really hooking.

The book itself is a young adult book with a bit of adult content depending on the age of the reader. It is also a mix of several different genres of comedy, drama, action, mystery and even sci-fi. James Dashner does a great job and setting the mystery of the Glade and the maze and executing it in a way that kept me as a reader interested in the story as well as guessing at who or what was behind Thomas’ circumstances. And even though Thomas is the main character each one in the book was unique and easy to differentiate between all of the Gladers.

At over 350 pages it is not a super huge book but it was a very quick read that did not feel like I read that much. I finished it so quick I jumped right into the sequel. One nice thing about the pace is that chapters were small. I tend to read books by the chapter and not the pages and this book having a lot of small chapters vs a small amount of large ones helped to pace me through the book and continue to want to read more and more. Of course the story did that too.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the book and can’t wait for the movie to come out so I can see it brought to life on screen. I only hope it translates well as the book is a-MAZE-ing! See what I did there? ;)