Hillari Morgan's Reviews > The Maze Runner

1.5 Stars

This book has been taunting me from a bookshelf within my eighth grade language arts classroom for years. In amongst all of the other books that I want and should read this summer, I decided it was time for The Maze Runner to have it's moment.

I should have waited.

This book was so annoying!!! It started off with the ridiculous slang that the author made up, to what ... ? Make the world seem different from ours? Authentic? Young? Blah. Whatever the reasoning, I hated it. I actually felt like I was back in Lord of the Flies which is another book that I strongly disliked (and I feel that way when I haven't even finished it yet!).

Then came the immaturity of the writing. I couldn't tell if it was purposeful [maybe to help convey the naivety and age (or lack thereof) of the characters], or if the author truly had no idea that he lacked sophistication within writing. Granted, I myself am not an author, but regardless, I still feel that immediate response is warranted and justified.

And if it could get any more silly - the ENTIRE text is spent on riddles. Riddles and mysteries that still remain even when the book concludes. Now yes, there are other books to come, but walking away from a book with just as many questions as you had to start, is just rude and gives me ZERO desire to read the rest. Oddly enough.

There are more undesirable qualities (I could go on and on -- the grievers, the amount of characters who truly made no sense ..) but as I am sure many of my students (and other readers) already dislike me enough, I will end here. Simply put: the only reason I gave it an extra half-a-star, is due to the creativity of the premise, which cannot be denied. The execution of the premise however, sucked.