The Maze Runner by James Dashner

I’m currently on a bit of a dystopia binge, and after devouring Veronica Roth’s ‘Divergent’ trilogy I decided to try ‘The Maze Runner’ by James Dashner. The blurb sounded really intriguing – the story begins with Thomas, a teenager who has no memory of his life before he is deposited inside a huge concrete maze with a group of other amnesiac boys. With no idea of who they are or who put them here, these boys have spent the last 2 years surviving in this maze, aswell as trying to find a way out. As if this isn’t enough of a bombshell, the day after Thomas arrives a girl is placed into the maze for the first time ever, and Thomas thinks he knows her.

This story reveals the big picture slowly and teasingly, leaving you on tender-hooks as you follow this ‘Lord of the Flies’ style tale of survival in a world that makes no sense at all.

The series continues with two other books: ‘The Scorch Trials’ and ‘The Death Cure’.

Although I think the idea of this story is interesting and completely original, it wasn’t quite what I expected. Infact, it is probably the very basis of the story that was the problem – the amnesia that all the characters are crippled with. Although an exciting literary technique, it makes it very difficult to feel connected to the characters. As a reader, you get no back story, no sense of the kind of person that Thomas is. For the majority of the book he is an extremely passive character: he is the eyes through which the reader views everything in the maze, but he doesn’t seem to show many strong emotions or sense of personality to engage the reader. He is a blank slate. Which means that the reader must decide for themselves over time whether Thomas is kind, funny, boring, strong, intelligent or cruel. His sense of character is built up slowly, making the connection between reader and protagonist delayed and weak.

Minho is the only character is this book that I felt had a particularly strong personality, as most of the others blended together somewhat into a vague picture of a confused and scared boy. Minho is strong, stubborn and fierce. He is engaging.

I also felt that the basis of this story – the dystopian world in which these boys live – was a little far-fetched. And that’s normally fine; I love dystopian novels with wild and unimaginable versions of our world, as long as the reasoning behind these civilizations is somewhat sound. It has to be slightly believable (even if we have to turn our heads and squint to picture it) in order for it to be a good read. And although ‘The Maze Runner’ is thrilling and fun and exciting, it is not believable.

But this may not bother other readers. It’s only for dystopia that I like my stories to be slightly believable, so I can imagine what I would do and who I would be in such a place. For me, horror stories/thrillers/fantasy novels can be as wildly unimaginable as they like – that’s the fun of them! – so maybe for others, a smidge of reality isn’t really necessary to enjoy a dystopian novel. And besides all of that, ‘The Maze Runner’ is definitely an enjoyable novel.

This book is also being turned into a film, with Kaya Scodelario (Effy from Skins!) playing Teresa, so it should be fantastic.