Book Review: The Maze Runner Trilogy

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Rare is it that I engaged with much of the young adult fiction that seems to be popular unless the novels are being turned into movies. It’s how I ended up reading the Twilight saga and The Hunger Games trilogy and how I came across James Dashner’s Maze Runner Trilogy. Thanks to Teen Wolf’s Dylan O’Brien being cast as the lead character I figured I #minuswell read the first book to at least familiarize myself with the tale. After making it through over 180 chapters, countless silent freak outs and some questions, I made it through these books and am here to share my thoughts.

The Maze Runner

I recapped this book over on Tumblr and having now finished the whole trilogy I can say that the first book is far and away the best of the trilogy. Dashner sets up a compelling world, populates it with characters we instantly get to know and just lets the tale go tell itself. Unlike the later books, you get the feeling he was able to let his freak flag fly, especially when the villains are these gelatinous blobs that are cow size, can roll, and have all sorts of instruments of torture. I mean that’s some fucked up stuff but it seems normal given the universe. The character relationships are a wonder to behold and Dashner really makes everyone pop. But the book is not without it’s issues. The love interest angle doesn’t really land because he keeps the girl in a coma for a majority of the novel and that Teresa just isn’t interesting, her knowledge of the past is, but as a character she’s quite annoying. The telepathy and subsequent telepathic conversations are deftly written, but don’t necessarily fit in with grounded world Dashner has created.

The Scorch Trials

This book follows much of the same tradition of these post apocalyptic novels in that the 2nd novel is a slight rehash of the first (think the Quarter Quell in Catching Fire). However, unlike that book this one doesn’t push the characters forward while introducing a plethora of new characters who, while given importance in the story, are always holding something back from us. The action in this book is written with much more fluidity than the first (thank goodness) and there were some scenes of intense peril. Making the villains of this piece the Cranks ratchets up the tension a lot, although zombie-esque characters have been used quite often. The trouble is that this book attempts to give you clues while jumbling up everything even more. The innate messiness of the book would have been fine had they also not brought in a love triangle  Man, that is one tired trope and it plays really strange here (although I thoroughly enjoyed the almost seduction Brenda employs against Tom) and leads to a super foolish scene. I’m surprised Dashner didn’t learn anything from The Matrix sequels that putting scenes set in a club is perhaps the dumbest thing you could do. Regardless of that, this book just felt like instead of letting his freak flag fly, he was uncontrolled in his craziness.

The Death Cure

Given the flaws in the first two books, it’s no surprise that many of them carried over to the final book in the series. However, this book’s “everything is going to shit” vibe really helps you look past them while reading, even though it does leave an after taste. Dashner pushes everything to it’s limit in this final book. Unlike these other novels, there are real stakes for everyone not just peripheral characters and the book presents the first real understanding of what actually happened to the world. There are some shocking character reveals in this book that really hint at the promise much of this story could have had. However, Dashner just barely scratches the surface of the genius that could have been this book. After all of the shit these character’s went through and as reader we read, the least you could have done was given us one chapter of resolution. In pushing things to the brink, Dashner ultimately forgets to send the characters off to some semblance of a real conclusion. Thomas never gets the answers he’s really searching for, we get the death of two major characters extremely late in the book, and there’s a lot of repeat scenarios of characters getting captured and escaping only to be capture and escape again. The final memo seemed like a cop out to me.

Closing Thoughts

While I really enjoyed reading these books and am excited for the films, I don’t think this series was all that and a bag of chips. The main issue I had is that I feel I have all the puzzle pieces that the author was trying to give me but instead of it assembling a 3D replica of the Empire State Building it’s just a 2D picture of some horses galloping through the woods. I found myself at the end being like ok…that’s it? I am aware that given the fractured nature of the character’s minds that things would be disjointed till the end, but the books don’t allow for breathing room and understanding of what really happened to them. Most of the reveals are done in monologue or flashback but rather than bridge the gap, these things halt the forward motion of the story. Which is a shame because Dashner’s characters are incredibly vivid and distinct that they deserved more than the tale allowed them to have and more than we got. Also, the love triangle, a boring trope in young adult novel, is played so fast and loose here that when it comes to its abrupt end, you just wonder what’s the point. This may be coming off a bit harsh, but it’s just to say that while entertaining these novels are certainly flawed.

Movie Prospects

The main reason I read these books was to see for myself what kind of movies these might have the opportunity to be. And honestly, it’s a mixed bag. The first novel will more than likely make a great starting place and there are moments within the last two novels that are going to look amazing on screen. But there are a lot of competing elements with the telepathic conversations, flashbacks, and most importantly the lack of a truly great ending that I foresee making these books incredibly difficult to adapt. It’ll be interesting to see what changes they’ll make to bring the movies to screen.

Grades by Book

The Maze Runner: B+ (Read my recap here)
The Scorch Trials: C-
The Death Cure: C+/B-

About Post Author

Terence Johnson

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