Elliot Mullen's Reviews > The Maze Runner

The Maze Runner by James Dashner
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it was amazing


James Dashner's writing style in The Maze Runner in my opinion is perfectly straightforward. What he argues in the book is very clear, as he does not stray too far from the message or argument he is trying to convey. His directions, like his arguments, are not confusing whatsoever, and do not deter the reader for the most part from the story, events, or any dialogue taking place. Dashner does a excellent job at balancing internal character development and external action to keep the story interesting, exciting, and alive. Dashner uses word choices and sentences that do not at all deter me from understanding the story. He uses moderately difficult words and a simple sentence structure that makes The Maze Runner not only an easy read, but a very immersive one too. Not many words in The Maze Runner exceed three syllables, which means that the word choices are for the most part easy to understand. An example of this is when the author writes "The creature was a horrific mix of animal and machine, and seemed to realize it was being observed, seemed to know what lay inside the walls of the Glade, seemed to want to get inside and feast on human flesh." In this excerpt as well as several others in this book, the words never pass three syllables, giving the impression of simple and reasonable word choices. The target audience for this book is teens, and since most of the readers are teens, Dashner's use of simple sentences with uncomplicated word choices continually made me want to read more and more.

James Dashner's fictional storyline in The Maze Runner is an original and interesting one. The story has a classic plot structure like most stories do, but he gives the storyline so much creativity and originality within the limits of the plot structure. The plot of the story is not similar to, nor does it resemble any other plots of stories that I have read before. A summary of the book is that one by one male teenagers arrive into this place called The Glade without their memory. Within The Glade is a large maze in which Runners, the people designated in their society to run the maze, are challenged to escape. They must find a way out of this maze before they all die. If they are in the maze at sundown, the entrance to the maze closes, and whoever is inside the maze has to try to survive for the rest of the night, against the nightmarish monsters that come out from dusk till dawn. The main character, Thomas, arrives without his memory, just like the rest of the teenagers. One night he discovers someone who has been injured and is struggling to get out of this maze. Thomas quickly runs in to save them, but the door shuts after them, leaving the them to fend for themselves against the monsters in the maze. They survive the night, but chaos ensues. They eventually find a way out of The Glade, saving themselves from death. The story has a exposition, initiating event, rising action, climax, falling action, and a resolution. Dashner uses originality by painting an extremely colorful descriptive image into my head, inviting me into the story. He created a story that pulled me in deeper and deeper into the plot, like no other book I have read before. The storyline is unique, with the various challenges these teenagers must face in such a creative setting that exudes tremendous originality. The storyline had a lot of plot twists throughout the book. One of these plot twists is when boys were the only ones ever in The Glade. A day after Thomas, the main character, arrives to The Glade, a girl arrives without her memory with a sign saying "She is the last one. Ever." This shows originality by creating a situation that I have not seen in a fictional book before, and is not a copycat of another book. This book does not have a lot of copy cat features, as Dashner created his own storyline that does not take many ideas from other books.
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Reading Progress

October 16, 2015 – Started Reading
October 27, 2015 – Shelved
October 27, 2015 – Finished Reading

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