Book Club Reviews: The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Hey y'all! Ready for another book club book review? Jenny and I knew we wanted to do something different when we reviewed book club books on the blog, so we're going to break our reviews down into three parts: (1) Jenny's Thoughts, (2) Lesley Anne's Thoughts, and (3) Overall Book Club's Thoughts. You'll see at the bottom that we have a fun way to show what the overall book club thought every month. ;) So first things first, we'll give you the summary of The Maze Runner by James Dashner so you have an idea of what the October book was about:

If you ain’t scared, you ain’t human.

When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his name. He’s surrounded by strangers—boys whose memories are also gone.

Nice to meet ya, shank. Welcome to the Glade.

Outside the towering stone walls that surround the Glade is a limitless, ever-changing maze. It’s the only way out—and no one’s ever made it through alive.

Everything is going to change.

Then a girl arrives. The first girl ever. And the message she delivers is terrifying.

Remember. Survive. Run.

Jenny's Thoughts: 

This book was interesting. I gave it a 3 on Goodreads because while I didn't hate it, I didn't love it, either. Since it is the first book in the trilogy it asks a lot of questions but does not provide a lot of answers. And by "not a lot" I mean none. It is actually really frustrating. There are too many characters for them to be developed to the point where you really care what happens with them. It is a really engaging world and premise, but there is not enough of the carrot to entice me to read the rest of the series.

Lesley Anne's Thoughts:
I completely agree with Jenny on this one. The Maze Runner had a bit of a slow start, but once THINGS started happening, the pacing really picked up, and pretty much every chapter ended on a cliffhanger moment, which made for a quick read (I know some people LOVE that, but it's not my favorite). The writing also really turned me off from this book -- it was very juvenile, cheesy, and somewhat repetitive. I know that twenty-something women probably weren't the target audience for this book, so I shouldn't be too hard on it on that front, but it was still hard for me to look past the cheesiness. Add in too many unanswered questions, bad situations conveniently wrapped up, and an ensemble cast of characters that were barely distinguishable from each other, and this one also only got 3 stars from me. I know I make it sound like I hated this book, but I really didn't. I enjoyed it, and I was intrigued by the many parallels I noticed to Lord of the Flies! But it's one of those books I won't read again, and I probably won't continue reading the rest of the series.      

Overall Book Club's Thoughts:

Opinions were all across the board! There were those that read the book in one sitting because it was too hard to put down, to those who tried to listen to the audiobook and were turned off by Dashner's invented slang. We even had a few that went on to read the entire series before we met to discuss the first book, so we were able to ask them which questions were answered by the end of the trilogy and decide whether or not we wanted to keep reading ourselves. This is why I love our book club so much - the diverse opinions really help me to see and think about things in ways I wouldn't have if I had read this book as a solitary experience. 

So what did we read in November? Jenny mentioned it in yesterday's post, but we read our first non-fiction book and chose Jesus Feminist by Sarah Bessey. We met to discuss it this past Monday night, so our thoughts will be coming soon. In the meantime, I hope everyone has a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving!!