The Maze Runner Book Trilogy (+ Movie) Review

Title: The Maze Runner; The Scorch Trials; The Death Cure
Author: James Dashner
Movies: The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trials (some mentions.)
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure, Action, Dystopian, Sci-Fi, Mystery.

The Maze Runner Trilogy (+ Movie) Review

I had been hearing about the Maze Runner series for the last few years, when you read a lot of dystopian fiction it tends to pop up in the recommended section a lot. However, for some reason, I kept avoiding the books –I’m not even sure why, if there is a reason why.

When I saw the trailer for the first film, I thought it looked pretty good and my housemates and I got our butts to the cinema to see it. This was a really interesting situation for me, for a series like the Maze Runner and as popular as it, to not have read it before watching the movies? It was really peculiar and exciting! I had no idea what was going to happen! Which probably sounds really juvenile because how often to people know what is going to happen in a film? But when you’re a massive book reader like me – it’s a really weird situation.

I really enjoyed the film (which months later, I finally got around to reading the trilogy. And I really do mean got around, I started the first book the day before I saw the second film.) My major issue with the first book (more so the film really), is the little details that they changed. There was just no need to change the amount of time the boys had been in the maze when it doesn’t make an impact on the overall story. That was really rather annoying.  There were a few more but I’ve forgotten them, just small, niggly details.

A gripe I have with these books is (a bit like I mentioned in my The Martian review) there is always something going wrong with Thomas! He is always ending up in some bad situation or the plan doesn’t go accordingly and he ends up in a near death situation. All the bloody time. It only works the first few times to create drama and becomes redundant quickly especially when it’s constant across the three books.

The second book is very different from the film, which I had heard about before I started reading the book. Here is where I began to develop a love/not bothered relationship with the book. I enjoyed the story every time I picked the book up but the problem was; I never wanted to pick it up! There was no urge to continue reading other than to finish and pick another book from my never-ending pile. The format is very simplistic as mentioned above, Thomas finds out something new about the Maze/WCKD/the world etc. Thomas is horrified and tries to get himself and his friends to safety, Thomas ends up in danger, Thomas doesn’t die.

By the end of the third book, I was ready to finish this series. The end was very dissatisfying, I don’t know what I was expecting or even wanting from the series, but I sure as hell didn’t want our characters to walk through a ‘wall’ so to speak and enter a happy world. Worst ending ever.

I know it sounds like I didn’t enjoy the series and that isn’t true, I did! Admittedly it is one of the weaker dystopian book series I have read but it’s still a good read – particularly the first book and it has good characters, I was gutted about one particular character in the last book but I won’t spoil that. If you’ve read it, you probably already know what I’m talking about!

The less said about the prequel, the better.