Maze Runner Doesn’t Disappoint

By Sydney Shain

Lately, since the release of its highly popular feature film counterpart, the Maze Runner series by James Dashner has been on the minds of the young adult fiction fanbase once again. Since its release in 2009, it has been number one on The New York Times bestseller list and compared to The Hunger Games, Divergent, The City of Ember, and countless other dystopian post-apocalyptic thrill reads. Thrilling enough, in fact, to be made into a major motion picture starring Dylan O’Brien.

Both the novel and movie tell the story of a group of teenage boys trapped in the Glade, a camp centered in a seemingly unsolvable maze full of unknown horrors. These teens fight to survive as their bleak but unchanging world gets turned upside down by the arrival of new and unusual visitors, both human and not. In the search for purpose and escape, these larger-than-life characters are forced to delve into their broken pasts to fight for a future. If you’re into action-packed novels-turned-movies like The Hunger Games and Divergent, pick up The Maze Runner at a local book store. Everyone wants to be able to say that they read the book before they saw the movie, anyway.

As far as the film counterpart to the book goes, I personally found it thrilling and very well-done. The movie was not filmed from the perspective of the main character like the book was, which doesn’t allow for as much in-depth understanding of the dire situation that everyone involved is in. However, the director and cast did manage to leave the viewer with the same cliffhanger that James Dashner perfected. If you have read the sequels to this first part of the series, it’s less unnerving than if you don’t know the whole story. I suggest seeing The Maze Runner in theaters if you haven’t, because the critics aren’t just raving about it for no reason!