You wake up in a large metal elevator with no idea how you got there.
The groan of metal surrounds you as you’re taken to an unknown destination.
You rack your mind wondering why you’re there when it hits you.
All you can remember is your name, and everything else is a blank.
The novel “The Maze Runner” takes place in the point of view of a boy named Thomas, who is dropped into an all-boy community full of unfamiliar faces. Through an introduction full of arguing and uncomfortable conversations, he learns that the community is called “The Glade” and the inhabitants refer to themselves as “Gladers.” They are self-sufficient, they have electricity and best of all they have little, to no, rules.
What could possibly go wrong?
A maze surrounding the community that is full of killer monsters, of course. Throw in a message of doom to the mix while they’re at it.
Overall, “The Maze Runner” starts out gruelingly slow. It’s a book that gives so much importance to a maze surrounding the compound and how the main character Thomas yearns to run in it, yet it takes 17 chapters for Thomas to even set foot in the maze. It takes a long time for the maze to become a big part of Thomas’s life, even though the title says otherwise. The book is called “The Maze Runner,” for crying out loud.
Although the beginning is slow, once Thomas ventures through the maze for the first time, the action picks up. Facing near-death experiences and watching Thomas’s intelligent actions help make up for the slow beginning. The novel engrosses the reader in a tale of mysterious, tense action in each chapter even when Thomas isn’t in the maze.
It’s not a surprise that the best-seller was adapted into a film. The movie that premiered on Sept. 19 starred Dylan O’Brien as Thomas. The trailers do the book justice, especially the special effects put into the maze and the characters’ personalities.
Overall, I rate “The Maze Runner” three out of five stars.