The Maze Runner

I went into The Maze Runner by James Dashner prepared to poo-poo it as just another "Hunger Games" rip off. Written in 2009, it has flown under my radar until my teen girl showed interest in seeing the movie. After the infamous "Twilight" debacle of 2008, I insist on reading the novel before I go see the movie whenever possible. To me at least, the first novel in this series is in many ways superior to the first "Hunger Game" novel.

These are real young men, they act the way I imagine my boy would act dropped in the same circumstances. I have seen packs of teen boys around my house for years and all I will say is that if Mr. Dashner does not have teen boys, he sure has a great memory for being a teen boy. The ribbing and name calling was so realistic (we will discuss the made up slang in a bit) I felt I was listening to The Boy and his friends in the kitchen in my home.

Because Mr. Dashner created a world in which basic supplies are provided for the boys, there was no need for the Gladers to become "wild" as in Lord of the Flies. For this I was eternally grateful, although I would recommend that novel as a follow-up to this one.

Using what can be a tired cliché of memory loss as a way to educate the reader as plot points could have gone horribly wrong, but for some reason, in this novel it works. I was as frustrated as Thomas about what the hell was going on in the Glade, and was as anxious to learn the rules of the "game" as he was. This made it a fun read.

My one complaint to this novel was all the made up slang words. Now I know this is a futuristic novel and slang terms come in and out of style, but it was obvious from Thomas' inability to understand them, that they were terms made up in The Glade. One thing I know for a fact is that no teen boy given the opportunity to call it shit would willing call it Klunk. I don't know if this was a choice of the author or the publisher to keep this novel firmly in the gripes of Younger YA fiction. But this is a minor complaint, and can be overlooked in an overall well written novel.