By James Dashner
"When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his first name. His memory is blank. But he’s not alone. When the lift’s doors open, Thomas finds himself surrounded by kids who welcome him to the Glade—a large, open expanse surrounded by stone walls.
Just like Thomas, the Gladers don’t know why or how they got to the Glade. All they know is that every morning the stone doors to the maze that surrounds them have opened. Every night they’ve closed tight. And every thirty days a new boy has been delivered in the lift.
Thomas was expected. But the next day, a girl is sent up—the first girl to ever arrive in the Glade. And more surprising yet is the message she delivers.
Thomas might be more important than he could ever guess. If only he could unlock the dark secrets buried within his mind."
The maze Runner started out slow. I had a hard time getting into it until maybe 17 chapters in. From there, it was exciting and action packed and I had a hard time putting it down. That being said, I thought the book was excruciatingly predictable. There were very few times my eyebrows tilted together in surprise and all of those small twists were ones that I immediately saw in hindsight.
The characters were well developed and Dashner did a great job giving each endless Glader a personality, but there were just too many to keep track of. Teresa seemed to get the short end of the stick in the personality development. I actually really liked the specialized slang of the Gladers and the way they had banded together to create a "normal" semblance of society. I kept forgetting these were prepubescents running the "world".
The end of the book was a little anti-climactic for me. I was also left a little confused; more questions than answers. I understand that he's setting up for two more books, but there should be a few "ah ha" bits of information that lead into the next book, not just more mystery piled onto the end of book one. Interested to see how the next book plays out.
