Maze Runner is a fantastic and very interesting book that shows the suffering teens have to endure in a dystopian world, where their blood is precious and highly valuable for the survival of the human race against a devastating disease.

Summary

The book begins with a teenager who wakes up in an elevator going up but not going down with him in it, he has absolute no memory other than his name which is Thomas. Once the elevator reaches the top, Thomas is pulled out of the elevator into the Glades by group of boys who have experienced the same situation Thomas is in right now and some still do. Each member of this community have their own nicknames.

Thomas begins to discover the Glades and finds out that it is run by two people Alby and Newt who have applied strict rules which ensure the safety of the people living in the Glades and assign jobs to every person. This is very important due to the fact that outside the glades is the maze where creatures that possess the ability to kill and poison humans lurk at night time, these creatures are called ‘Grievers’ no one in the Glades has ever managed to kill one and no one who has seen one has ever made it out alive. The boys are now forced to try stay alive and solve the maze at the same time, thus forcing them to enter the maze and locate an exit.

A day has gone by since Thomas’ arrival and suddenly another person is sent up by the elevator this time its different. Instead of it being a boy it is a girl. At the time of the arrival many of the boys were surprised some even excited until she started to mumble words and then collapsed into a coma, however the girl’s arrival triggers the sun disappearing, food supplies not arriving anymore and the worst of them all, door being open at night allowing the Grievers to enter and feast on the people.

Whilst everyone is in panic Thomas thinks of an idea, and figures out that the maze is actually code and by using skills he works out the word it spells out. He also discovers that a cliff that was thought to just be a cliff is in fact the place where Grievers originate from so he thought that this could be a possible exit. Whilst everyone is panicking Theresa wakes up and informs Thomas that she knew him before she was sent here.

A day has gone by and Thomas at his own will gets himself stung by a griever so he can find out where this “cliff” is and how to get there. Due to a recent turn of events a large group decide they are better off trying to escape then staying in the glades and make a run for the exit. The group finally escape the maze but suffer a few casualties, upon their exit they find out that they have been experimented on and are part of a much bigger project, the people responsible go by the name WCKD, shocked and curious at the same time,they are even more surprised when a rebel group enter the facility and take the them away.

AMBITION

Ambition is vastly used throughout the book where characters have to risk their own lives to ensure the safety of others.Ambition is portrayed by the actions and wrongdoing of Thomas (the man character), many events in the book start to take a turn for the worse: the maze stays open 24/7 allowing grievers to devour the innocent people living in the glades and food supplies stop being delivered. Even though all this is happening at the same time Thomas goes against the rules of the Glades and through using ambition and the desire to overcome this hell he devises a plan to rescue and escape this place.

The book ends on a cliff-hanger leaving the reader curious on what’s going to happen next. Where Is this ‘Rebel Group’ going to take them? Why are they helping these children?