The YA Dystopian Book Club discussion

This thread is for discussing the first book in The Maze Runner series. You don't need to mark your spoilers in this thread unless mentioning later books in the series. In which case use [spoiler] before the text and [/spoiler] after the text, replacing the [] with <>.

Thanks :)

Although there was a lot of things happening throughout the novel, for most of the book I felt like there was not much action and it was quite boring, but my curiosity to what was happening in the book led me to continue reading. The characters were pretty well developed. My favorite being Teresa and chuck. It was too bad that Chuck died; I almost cried. This shows me that the characters were pretty well developed because I was attached to them.
I loved the ending and I believe that the next books will be better. I think that the mystery will be somewhat less prevalent and therefore I believe that I will enjoy the next book more. The last 60 pages of this book were my favorite.

Jessica: The next two books are great...definitely check them out. Very exciting and a few moments where i think i literraly jumped ;) I thouroughly enjoyed this series so read on ;)

Brenda wrote: "Jessica: The next two books are great...definitely check them out. Very exciting and a few moments where i think i literraly jumped ;) I thouroughly enjoyed this series so read on ;)"

Thanks for the recommendation. I will definitely read them soon.

I wasn't too keen on the first half of the book but I loved the second half because the pace really picked up. It was quite scary when they were trapped outside at night with all those creatures.

The ending was awesome and overall it was a great book. I had no idea what was going to happen and the characters were all quite intriguing.

I personally am a huge fan of plot twists, so I thought that was super interested and it kept me reading all the time. I can understand getting irritated, althoguh it didn't happen to me personally

Haha- I didn't get that at all...I personally am not a big fan of love triangles but if they're there I'm fine with MMF...I didn't see it like that. I feel that most authors don't randomly palce that in books simply because it is quite controversial. I don't mind it, but I've never read a book :P Yeah- I think the Dumbledore thing was really kept quiet, simply because it would be WAY controversial

Yeah, I think the fact that you read the entire trilogy all at once, while I read the first two and then had to wait for the third one changed things. I think spacing out the trilogy gave me a different perspective on the closure and stuff. I don't think that there was complete closure, but I felt more closure from this book compared to other final books in trilogies like Mockingjay from the Hunger Games.

I think that happens in ever book though where things just get a bit confusing. I don't really care about specific book-following rules. As long as it has lots of twists and stuff I don't mind getting confused or them kinda contradicting each other.

No offense, but to me that's completely irrelevant. This book isn't political or anything, it isn't about being romantic. This book was an adventure book, the guys being gay or something just isn't even important. Maybe that happened, but I don't understand the benefit of the reader knowing that?

I personally think it's fine. I personally wouldn't have minded if it had been included, but I don't think it was necessary in the way of it didn't help the plot or anything. And for people who care that much they'd be avid fans enough to know about it anyways. Quite frankly this is a very divisive topic, and I think authors should keep their own views on topics like these to themselves. If it helps the plot or is super important sure, but if it's just for the sake of it, I don't think there's a point. I don't mind it, but not everyone is fine with it.

I never really supported Brenda either. I really loved the book and I thought the romance was okay although it wasn't fantastic or anything. I feel the romance with Teresa definitely nurtured the plot a ton though! Love triangles are just totally overused now. The biggest problem, is you can always predict who's gonna win from their first introduction. Like as much as I loved gale and stuff I knew Peeta would win.

Haha, well I didn't really predict that as much- but in all honesty I wasn't too invested in this romance.

I've only read The Kill Order and Maze Runner so far. I thought the Kill Order had a good pace, but the Maze Runner lagged in some areas. I have to say that I like the plot twists that had me guessing. I find that a lot of books are too predictable.

As for relationships I think they're important. I think they help shape the main characters. I wouldn't say that I sensed an intimate relationship between Alby and Newt, but I think they did have a strong friendship.

Anyone cried when Chuck died?

@Vlad, no I didn't cry since I wasn't able to really connect to him.

By the way, fellow Y/A lovers, I am kind of hesitant to post comments about this book for fear of giving too much spoiler. I've already finished reading all the 3 (4 if you include the kill order) books since last year.

I love the Maze Runner especially the thrill of being in the Maze and outlasting those Grievers.


Thoughts and Pens

Haha- this is the spoiler thread, so people have enough warning- so you can spoil the first one (just not the next few please) and you can always use spoiler tags for the next few books :P

Thanks, Riya. I might do it slowly because if my excitement got the best of me, I'll ruin everything for the others. :D

Haha- a gradual release of the energy :P

I'm not liking this book as much as I thought I would... should I continue reading or stop where I am?

Eryn wrote: "I'm not liking this book as much as I thought I would... should I continue reading or stop where I am?"

There are some difficulties with the book, but I would suggest to continue on. I ended up enjoying the book and read the entire series.

You know, I did not find this book that enjoyable. I thought that constantly not knowing anything was frustrating. By the time I was finally given a clue as to what was happening, I had already written the book off, and was just finishing it in hopes that the end would make it worth-while.

I thought the characters were left under-developed and it was painfully obvious that the author was going to kill off Chuck. I just wish he had done so at a better time. As it were, the plot was too fast paced and readers were really not given time to mourn Chuck before being forced back in-to the action to complete the story.

The most interesting part of the book, in my opinion, was the memo at the very end! I think if the book had been written from both points of view (Tom+WICKED), I would have found the story more interesting. Knowing more about the back story, while our main character had to struggle through it, would have provided dramatic irony and likely have made me more invested.

As it is, I read reviews about the second and third books and decided not to read on because so many people expressed frustration that even at the end of the series so much is left unanswered and unknown!

So so sry I'm having trouble with spoiler tags in addition can you plz tell me how to remove a post on mobile

Sorry I don't think you can remove a post on mobile but I'll go ahead and delete the post with the spoiler in so you can rewrite it later if you like.
Spoiler tags should look like this, but without the gaps:

< spoiler > this is where your spoiler goes < / spoiler >

Hope it helped :)

It has been a while since I read this book. Maybe a year and a half. It was ok. As far as dystopian goes it is a pretty typical novel. A few things i liked about was that kids ruled the place, there were no adults, the maze, and the sinister adults behind the little experiment. That's all I can remember at the time.

I liked it, but not as much as the sequels. It wasn't as exciting.

I liked it, but not as much as the sequels. It wasn't as exciting.

From what I remember about reading the Maze Runner a year ago, I absolutely loved it. It was nothing like I'd ever read before. It was both horrifying and fascinating to imagine how I would fare in the Glade. Although Thomas was frustrating, I would have probably reacted to the situation in the same way if I were in his shoes. The typical strong and fearless heroin(e)s in YA dystopians can get tiring. Thomas was more "average" in comparison (though one could argue he becomes not-so-average later on).

I am so intrigue with this series. I love the first book and can't wait to start reading the second one in the trilogy.

I was actually disappointed in this series. One of my closest friends said it was a really good book, but I wasn't all that impressed with it. I'm currently reading the Scorch Trials but I'm not sure if I want to continue. I just wasn't all that into it.

I just finished maze runner a few days go and I really liked it, I thought there was a good amount of action in it, the only thing I didn't like too much was after Teresa and Tom finally meet and talk in Person it didn't seem that real, like they talked like everything was normal. They were shocked at first but like a minute later everything was normal so I didn't really like that part but other then that I loved it!

I also thought that there might have been something going on with newt and alby, well that mayb newt had a thing for him but alby had no idea. I

Personally I didn't like the ending of The Death Cure. SPOILERS!!!!! (view spoiler)[ I didn't mind what happened to Newt , but Theresa REALLY! She did not deserve what happened to her and the fact that Thomas and Brenda were smiling and kissing right after. UGH made me want to smack them! If I'm right there should have been another maze (group B) to have caught in the explosion. Makes my stomach churn.. < / spoiler> Besides all that I liked the series. (hide spoiler)]

I totally agree Abbey :P