Helpful Score: 6
First Line: He began his new life standing up, surrounded by cold darkness and stale, dusty air.
When Thomas wakes up, he finds himself on an elevator going up and up through a seemingly endless darkness. The only thing he remembers is his first name. When the elevator doors open, he finds himself surrounded by dozens of other young boys. Thomas has arrived in the Glade, a large open-air place surrounded by high stone walls.
The other boys don't remember anything of their previous lives either. All they know is that they arrived in the Glade the same way. Once a month, a new boy arrives on the elevator. Each morning, openings appear in the stone walls and the way is open to the Maze. Each evening at sunset, the openings in the wall close for the night.
Thomas stumbles a bit as he learns the slang the other boys use, but from the beginning, he has the faintest glimmers that he knows this place. When he looks out into the Maze, he knows that he has to explore it. And the very next day when the first girl ever sent up on the elevator to the Glade arrives, every boy living there knows that, somehow, things are about to change.
At the beginning of the book, I was stumbling around as much as Thomas-- becoming acquainted with the characters, trying to get used to the annoying slang, getting a feel for this world that author James Dashner has created and put me in the middle of. It didn't take long for me to get my bearings and start becoming fascinated with this strange new land. What on earth were these young boys doing in the middle of a gigantic maze patrolled by monstrous creatures? It had to be some sort of test...but why? To what purpose?
I knew when I picked up The Maze Runner that it was the first book in a trilogy, so I was not surprised or angered by the cliffhanger ending. Multi-volume Young Adult series seem to be the order of the day.
Dashner has created a very interesting world for his characters, and it will be very interesting indeed to follow this story in the next two books. The only thing that annoyed me as I read was the slang that the boys spoke. I didn't find it difficult to decipher, and it's probably just a sign of my age, since I find the speech patterns of many tweens and teens irritating!
If you like reading about a world in which something has gone very wrong and about characters who are trying to fight their way out of it, you will enjoy The Maze Runner. It won't take long for you to realize that Thomas and the others aren't the only ones trying to solve the puzzle of the labyrinth...so are you.
When Thomas wakes up, he finds himself on an elevator going up and up through a seemingly endless darkness. The only thing he remembers is his first name. When the elevator doors open, he finds himself surrounded by dozens of other young boys. Thomas has arrived in the Glade, a large open-air place surrounded by high stone walls.
The other boys don't remember anything of their previous lives either. All they know is that they arrived in the Glade the same way. Once a month, a new boy arrives on the elevator. Each morning, openings appear in the stone walls and the way is open to the Maze. Each evening at sunset, the openings in the wall close for the night.
Thomas stumbles a bit as he learns the slang the other boys use, but from the beginning, he has the faintest glimmers that he knows this place. When he looks out into the Maze, he knows that he has to explore it. And the very next day when the first girl ever sent up on the elevator to the Glade arrives, every boy living there knows that, somehow, things are about to change.
At the beginning of the book, I was stumbling around as much as Thomas-- becoming acquainted with the characters, trying to get used to the annoying slang, getting a feel for this world that author James Dashner has created and put me in the middle of. It didn't take long for me to get my bearings and start becoming fascinated with this strange new land. What on earth were these young boys doing in the middle of a gigantic maze patrolled by monstrous creatures? It had to be some sort of test...but why? To what purpose?
I knew when I picked up The Maze Runner that it was the first book in a trilogy, so I was not surprised or angered by the cliffhanger ending. Multi-volume Young Adult series seem to be the order of the day.
Dashner has created a very interesting world for his characters, and it will be very interesting indeed to follow this story in the next two books. The only thing that annoyed me as I read was the slang that the boys spoke. I didn't find it difficult to decipher, and it's probably just a sign of my age, since I find the speech patterns of many tweens and teens irritating!
If you like reading about a world in which something has gone very wrong and about characters who are trying to fight their way out of it, you will enjoy The Maze Runner. It won't take long for you to realize that Thomas and the others aren't the only ones trying to solve the puzzle of the labyrinth...so are you.
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