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Book Review of The Maze Runner (Maze Runner, Bk 1)

The Maze Runner (Maze Runner, Bk 1)
reviewed on + 134 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1


I know this is an extremely popular book/series so I'm happy to accept that I'm an outlier on this, but I found this novel sooooo boring! The made-up dialect (shuck, shank, klunk) drove me bonkers; there was no need for it and it made the book impossible to take seriously. Add in the fact that basically none of the characters, including Thomas, were likable, and things happened for him a little TOO easily; I know he's supposed to be gifted and special but like, come on. It's not believable. Also, if I had to read one more line of "stop asking questions, you'll find out soon enough" I was going to lose it. That's not an acceptable way to write a novel! "I don't want to reveal something so I'm just going to have the characters repeat this line over and over ad infintum" Stop. STOP IT.

The book was also longer than it needed to be (contributing to boredom factor) because of constant misdirects. "Something bad happened!" *spends ten pages fretting about something bad happening* "oh actually we took a precaution we didn't tell you about (sensing a theme?) and everything is totally fine". Thank you for wasting the last ten pages completely unnecessarily. Also stunned that for a book with ONE female character, she has the least purpose and agency of almost any YA character I've seen. At the end of the book when Thomas says he can't feel anything except a void, my thought was "well it can't make you any less interesting than you already were."

I honestly should have DNF'd this book, and had to push myself to finish. I know lots of of people love this; I, however, do not understand what about this book inspired a worldwide interest/following.