Sarah's Reviews > The Maze Runner

The Maze Runner by James Dashner
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it was ok
bookshelves: 2016, fiction

This was...fine? I think? I didn't go into this with particularly high expectations, so that was good. But it was just pretty meh and I can safely say this is a rare care of movie better than book.

Right off the bat I noticed how clunky the writing was and I constantly found myself autopilot reading. Like...you know when you get halfway down the page and realize you haven't really been paying attention or absorbing any of the words you just read? Yea. That happened. A lot. At first I thought it was maybe because I was reading it at night and I was tired...but that still happened when I read it in the middle of the day. So, no, not a tired thing. Just a "this book was written pretty poorly" thing.

Thomas as a character is...annoyingly heroic? If that makes any sense. Like...he had all these super strong desires and feelings about people and being a runner and all that jazz, but his motivations just didn't make sense to me half the time and I guess they weren't supposed to make sense either because he didn't remember his former life? I don't know. It was weird.

The rest of the characters were pretty annoying, to be honest. It felt like a whole lot teenage angst erupting at once and I get that they've been trapped in this maze for two years and sooner or later people would probably get super irritated, but all of it erupting at once? And all of it being aimed at Thomas? Please. Also, can we please talk about how these are supposed to be the smartest of the smart kids and yet none of them are girls? Because I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous.

The book itself is fairly action-packed and fast-paced and I found myself picking it up pretty regularly to get through, partially because it's been long enough since I've seen the movie that I only vaguely remembered how everything turned out. But the clunky writing and irritating characters killed any positive vibes that pacing got.
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Reading Progress

February 23, 2016 – Shelved
February 23, 2016 – Shelved as: keep-on-the-radar
March 6, 2016 – Started Reading
March 6, 2016 –
page 30
7.81% "Boy, is this writing clunky."
March 7, 2016 –
page 80
20.83%
March 8, 2016 –
page 104
27.08%
March 8, 2016 –
page 152
39.58%
March 8, 2016 –
page 191
49.74%
March 9, 2016 –
page 233
60.68%
March 10, 2016 –
page 310
80.73%
March 11, 2016 – Shelved as: 2016
March 11, 2016 – Finished Reading
December 30, 2022 – Shelved as: fiction

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