I was looking forward to reading this book; I didn't expect it to be this bad. The first hundred pages or so were excruciatingly annoying and boring, and I had to force myself to sit down and finish the book after two weeks of dawdling. What was annoying about it? Everything. The writing style with its constant repetition of things that were just revealed and the constant questions of "why? what did it all mean?" by the protagonist while he *knows* that half of the things he's asking can't be answered, and the other half *won't* be answered - annoyingly - until the plot calls for it. There's also a lot of sudden feelings the protagonist experiences out of the blue, and they are ALL told, not shown. Add to that two plot-driving devices that just SCREAM deus ex machina - amnesia and, later, telepathy, and you have a rage-inducing mix. So a lot of the book was spent with conversations and descriptions like this (no dogs or backyards in the book, random example made up by yours truly):

"Oh no. There's a dog in the backyard", Newt said. Thomas felt cold all of a sudden. "There's a dog in the backyard?", he asked. "Yes." He couldn't quite explain why, but a chill of foreboding ran down his spine. What did that mean? "You're saying there's a dog in the backyard?" "Yes. A brown one", Newt said, looking away uneasily. A dog in the backyard? And a brown one? Why was it in the backyard? What did it all mean? "So that is... bad?" Thomas asked, trying to discern what Newt's worried expression could mean. For some strange reason he was starting to feel annoyed, but somewhere in his brain something clicked. Like - a flicker of recognition. A déjà vu? "Just... don't ask", Newt said curtly and stood up. "You'll find out soon enough."

I was ready to tear my hair out or give the protagonist a wedgie by page 40.

And it didn't get better. Over-capitalisation was rampant in the book, I tells ya. The simplest words were capitalised just to give that Lord of the Flies* feeling and to make stuff sound ominous (the Box, the Glade, the Doors, the Cliff, the Tour, the First Day). I get that things need names, but really, they already *have* names. At one point someone calls for a collar, and I thought "not a Collar?", but then someone brought the Pole and I thought "Ah. Ok then".

Then the Girl is introduced. Ok, I made that up. So, the girl is introduced. Dunn dunnnn! She's pretty, and perfect, has the bluest eyes in Texas that apparently glow in the dark they're so amazing, she's "thin, but not too small", has skin that is "pale, white as pearls" - no scratch that, she's "more than pretty. Beautiful. Silky hair, flawless skin, perfect lips, long legs." I kid you not. That's a quote. A bunch of boys that range between pimply, fat, tall, small, muscly, and different ethnicities, and the author goes ahead and introduces a girl straight out of a teenage boy's dream as the ONLY female character. Not only that, but she's looking all pink lips and perfect skin, and our smart protag-chan thinks she's dead. Then a boy-medic starts to examine her, and one of the boys, who are supposed to be between 12 and 16, makes a rape-joke about the possibly dead girl. Awright, mate? I can't even find the words for all the head-shaking I did. And I mean, if her beauty was intentional - like, "introduce a pretty girl, see how the boys will react" it would have been a different story perhaps, but that's not the case - she's pretty because she's the token love interest. (She's also smart, see, or so the author tells us. More on everyone's smartness later.) She also smells of flowers after having been bedridden for days and having spent a day in the Slammer, which is an impressive feat since I'm sure there are no creams or shampoos tailored to women in the Glade. Boys: if a woman smells like flowers, it's usually a cosmetic product.

Then, protag-chan. He's supposed to be smart, and he's supposed to be our focal character. And he is such a jerk. He's a walking double standard. He keeps asking, but not answering when someone asks *him*, he keeps thinking badly about people who are trying to befriend him and switching between being nice and being a jerk to them, he keeps butting in without knowing anything, then being all sulky and angry when he's rebuked, because he's just trying to help, you idiots. He wants to be a runner - pardon, Runner - and thinks he should become one, because, you know, he wants it so badly and wouldn't he be such a big help? And of course he keeps asking why and what it all means, and it gets even more annoying in the second half of the book, when things go awry and it is incredibly clear that NOBODY has any idea what is going on.

In between he keeps thinking about the girl, who spends most of the book incapacitated and in storage, so to speak. The author takes her out of her box later to bob along and give helpful insight and advice - think Legend of Zelda for gameboy, where characters will follow you around for certain quests and give nuggets of wisdom in places where they are needed. That's our girl. There's also a certain gift and some memories conveniently popping up when the plot calls for them, so the unraveling of the mystery is not done by action, really, but by something that was already in place for the whole of the book. It's infuriating. Moreover, the restrictions put on everyone else don't seem to apply to her: she's supposed to be in the same situation as Thomas on his First Day, but for some reason there doesn't seem to be much need for explanations for her. Instead of sending her through a phase of disorientation, the author just lets her conveniently grok everything.

Now for the Maze. It could have been brilliant. It's not. (Keeping it short here, because I've had about enough of thinking about this book.) The underlying mystery is pathetic, the "monsters" are pathetic (and just one kind! You'd think there'd be several, uh, species), and the way they can be overcome is absolutely ridiculous. The supposedly smart boys, who have to solve a puzzle that their lives depend on, do the same bleeping thing for two years and keep insisting that they have tried everything. Of course, the actual solution involves doing something that should have been a very, very obvious thing to do, and I can't believe no-one has tried something even remotely similar in all that time. But then again, the actual solution also involves something nobody COULD have thought of, because it's tied to Thomas speshul status and the convenient thing lurking behind *his* mystery. It's all such a mess! And I got the feeling the Maze was like a Rube Goldberg machine the size of a small country, built to open a pickle jar. Major-ish spoiler in the tag: A testing ground? For people who have apparently passed tons of tests already? The hell. Wouldn't it be simpler to just send the "winners" on that mission and see if they succeed, if it's so important? Why kill them off beforehand for nothing?. I think the author just wanted to build something bombastic, without finding a proper explanation for it. Also, why no climbing? Why? What does it MEAN?

And the ending. Gawd. NOTHING makes sense, there's more of the Rube Goldberg machine thing going on - really - why not stairs? Or even an elevator?, there are pathetic attempts to evoke some feelings, Thomas keeps being a double-standard asshole - It's apparently fine to beat someone to a pulp who is obviously being controlled, because he's the Bad Guy, and you're doing the Right Thing even if you have no fucking idea what is going on, because you're the protagonist., and the book was not FINISHED. Trilogies are fine, but don't just dump your readers in the middle of the road, dear authors. It's bad form. And the world sounds like a farce, the overarching storyline sounds like an even bigger farce, and I'm pretty sure the author has NO idea where to go with this. Or had no idea at this point, since the trilogy is finished. I won't be finishing it though, because I'm very, very sure that it will a) only get worse, and b) have a tremendously underwhelming explanation for everything in the end, if there is one.

Ok, this got long, but the book just annoyed me so much. 1 star because it *did* pick up a little in the second half and I have read worse writing. Half a star for the promise the Maze held, but maybe that's just because the film's promo thingy looks amazing. Sigh.

*This is not Lord of the Flies, but I think it wants to be. At least LotF held some meaning and tried to do something besides look cool. ( )