Smashbomb

I usually go for books set a lot earlier that 1984 so when I picked this up I was full of anticipating I would immediately hate it and stop reading. Luckily that wasn't the case!
It jumps back and forth from past to present and includes real life issues going on in the world at that time. I personally love to see a story include real life problems as it feels like it actually happened and makes it so much more interesting to read. Don't worry, I know these people don't actually exist!!

It took me a few chapters to get into it but once I did I began to love it. Although the actual plot on both sides if good, it feels rushed to get the story out and some bits are quite difficult to grasp.
There is a family in the book that are sikh which despite my religious education at school I don't know much about so to an extent this book taught me something about sikhs. This is also hard because there are certain aspects to the writing i found hard to understand.
I like to see the good in every story so I'd say have a read of it yourself and see what you think.

Kudos

David McK (3505 KP) rated The Maze Runner in Books

Jan 28, 2019

The Maze Runner

James Dashner | 2011 | Children

8.0

(55 Ratings)

Book Rating

I decided to read this after watching the film of the same name based on it, in both cases more out of a sense of curiosity than out of any real desire to watch/read it.

In both cases, if I was asked for one word to sum it up, that word would probably be 'M'eh'.

Bleak in nature, this (IMO) is definitely one of - if not the - weakest of the Young Adult genre books I have read recently, that seem to have experienced a surge in popularity of late. In a break from what seems to be the norm, however, the main protagonists in this are predominantly male.

For anyone who doesn't know: the central character (Thomas) wakes up in a lift, with no memory of his previous life, to find himself deposited in what seems to be a glade surrounded by a massive maze which reconfigures itself every night, and in which monsters roam. He finds himself driven to become a Runner - i.e. a maze explorer - just as events start to unfold that will mark the end of their way of life (or the experiment in which the kids are all unwilling participants).

Reading that back, it's almost as if this is experiments done on mice told from the mice's point of view!

I've read it, but currently have no real desire to read any of the others in the series.