I wanted to cross off The Maze Runner series from my reading list, so I decided to read the first three books straight through. I figured I'll read those first, then decide if I want to commit to the book series further.
In the first book, The Maze Runner, Thomas wakes up to find himself in an elevator that would lead him to the clearing and introduce him to a group of teenage boys in varying ages. He learns that every month for the past two years, a new boy is sent to the clearing with no memory of his past save for his name. Like clockwork, a boy arrives and joins their little community, finding a role that will contribute to the daily life that they established for themselves. Never mind that the clearing is surrounded by a giant maze, with walls that shift every day to create new paths and closing off the clearing every night, protecting them from the hunting Grievers. It's bad enough that Thomas feels strongly that he has to become a runner, a role that would be impossible for a 'greenie' to earn, but Gally is sure in his declaration that Thomas is one of the bad guys. What's more, way ahead of schedule, the elevator arrives once more to drop off another person. This time, the new addition is an unconscious girl with an attached note saying, "She is the last one. Ever." What ensues is a scramble to find a way out of the maze, with Thomas fending off accusations of collusion with the maze creators and a bout with the Grievers that he would rather forget. It doesn't help that he somehow has to ability to telepathically communicate with Teresa and she seems to trigger the clearing's final days.
In the Scorch Trials, Thomas and a handful of survivors from the clearing find themselves free from the maze. But their new found freedom is only an illusion and the maze's creators are subjecting them to further trials, claiming that they need more data to find a cure against the Flare, a plague that removes traces of humanity in an afflicted individual until he succumbs to death. Teresa disappears and Thomas finds out that he is designated to die, all the while participating in yet another challenge to cross the wasteland Scorch. Their journey leads to even more fatalities and even more questions, since they are still without their memories, thus having no knowledge of the plague they're supposedly helping find a cure for or the state of the world they now find themselves in.
In The Death Cure, Thomas is weary of his brutal adventures, having lost many of his comrades, betrayed at every turn, and a good friend succumbing to the Flare. The maze's creators WICKED is gearing towards the final stages of their plan, with Thomas at its center. But WICKED is playing it safe, putting yet another plan in motion in case their experiment fails to yield the cure for the Flare. With WICKED willing to sacrifice even more lives for the sake of their experiment, rebel group Red Arm mounts their own plans to stop the organization once and for all.
It was probably for the best that I ended up reading The Maze Runner's first three books in succession, instead of opting to read something else in between each installment, which would have given me time to convince myself never to return to it. The dystopian fiction story is targeted for YA audiences, especially with a cast of characters that are mostly in their teenage years. But the novels feels as if it's designed for more mature readers or for those who have a stronger stomach for the themes and level of violence depicted in its pages. You know that Thomas isn't going to die (or die senselessly, at least) since he's pretty much providing the main narrative voice of the books, but everybody else is pretty much fair game in the series. And author James Dashner was pretty imaginative when it came to all the different ways one can die in the series.
There're good things to like about the book series. It featured an interesting concept and James Dashner was pretty good at dishing out action scenes. On the other end of the spectrum, however, the original trilogy felt overly long and could have done better as a longer stand alone novel. I'm not referring to the number of pages the series has, but the actual content it featured. The Maze Runner rarely offers glimpses of the good side of humanity, which made me feel as if there was little progress in my reading. I at least like my dystopian fiction to feature redeeming qualities and glimpses of hope that would properly motivate characters. There was very little of that in the series. All of the hardships and betrayals that they constantly hurled Thomas's way actually made me feel that the humans very much deserved the Flare. I don't expect characters in this kind of story to never experience hardships, but the line at the amount of physical and emotional battering had to be drawn somewhere at some point. Or at least be given proper pause, especially when it seems all so senseless.
The first book, The Maze Runner, was actually a good start to a series. There was a concise quality to the storytelling that made me interested to find out what happened outside of the maze. Once they escaped the maze and the book ended in a cliffhanger about their fate, I looked forward to the new challenges and the possible world building the series would feature. But The Scorch Trials was just one hardship after another, and The Death Cure didn't have enough good things to help a reader recover from the trauma caused by its predecessor. You will notice that my summaries at the start of this post for each installment got progressively shorter, thereby exhibiting the level of my enthusiasm for each one.
I wonder if I'm soft when it comes to these themes or maybe I'm just not the reader James Dashner had in mind when he wrote the series. Many have given the series positive reviews and it's obviously garnered enough attention to warrant film adaptations for both The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trials, but I can't quite get on board with the fanfare.
So, no, this wasn't a particularly happy reading session for me. Which is a shame, because I get so little reading time as it is.Labels: Action, Adventure, Book Series, Books, Drama, Dystopian, Fiction, James Dashner, Post-Apocalyptic, Reading List, Sci-fi, The Death Cure, The Maze Runner, The Maze Runner Series, The Scorch Trials
