The Maze Runner series - a review

This review is for the whole book trilogy, and is spoiler-free. I might do one for the movie as well, as I'm seeing it tomorrow. We'll see.

The Maze Runner starts when a boy wakes up and the only thing he remembers is his name. Soon he finds out that the place he's in is a maze, and the group of boys that live there don't remember much more than he does. They don't know why they're there, what for, and who sent them. The first book is about them trying to find a way out of the maze, and that's all I'm going to tell about the plot / plots. The best way to read this is to know nothing, to learn as the characters are learning. Some people might find it a bit annoying, but I loved it. I loved not knowing what was going on in the world outside the maze, I loved not knowing almost anything. It was great that the whole backstory wasn't told in the first chapter, but discovered little by little the same pace as the characters.


The main character is called Thomas. He's pretty awesome. I love how he keeps questioning what's going on, he keeps asking and thinking why something happens, and doesn't just go with it. He's also pretty badass. I loved so many of the other characters as well, they were brilliant. Very well written and thought-out. The new made-up words were a great addition, and I have found myself thinking with those words after reading these.

The chapters are really short, which was good, it worked for the story. Many ended in cliffhangers, and sometimes I just had to put the book down to let my brain process what had just happened. The books are action-packed, really fast to read, full of surprised and plot twists, exciting and sometimes quite scary. I enjoyed the writing style as well, and as I said, it was really fast to read.

I laughed. I cried. I was really scared my favourite characters were going to die, all the time. The story surprised me many times, and most of those were good surprises. I was often left with a feeling of 'WTF', or 'holy shit.' I loved this series, well, trilogy, as there is a prequel I haven't read (called the Kill Order). I gave the first two books, the Maze Runner and the Scorch Trials, 5 out of 5 stars, and the last one, the Death Cure, 4 out of 5 stars.

If you like great books with adventure and action, this is definitely a must-read. (And I just have to add, none to very little romance!! Yasss!!) I picked up the first one and after I finished reading, I had to go online and order the next two. And the almost-two-weeks wait was painful. but when I got the books I read them in two / three days. I finished these a couple of days ago, and I still keep thinking about everything that happened. Definitely one of my favourite series, ever.

I don't know if these are even translated to Finnish yet, but anyway, keep your eyes out for James Dashner. The movie is called Labyrintti (basically just the Maze) so that might be the title of the book as well. Anyway, I don't know how good these will be in Finnish, but in English they were just brilliant.