Today, I’m recommending a heart-pounding tale of science fiction called The Maze Runner by James Dashner. Published in 2009, this book is the first in Dashner’s suspenseful trilogy, subsequently followed by The Scorch Trials and The Death Cure. Both The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trials have been made into blockbuster movies starring the likes of Dylan O’Brien, Patricia Clarkson, and Giancarlo Esposito. Fans of The Hunger Games and Divergent will find themselves completely fascinated by this similar work of dystopian fiction.
When sixteen-year-old 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,” says one of the strangers. “Welcome to the Glade." Thomas’s arrival marks two years since the first boys found themselves in the Glade.
Outside the towering stone walls that surround the Glade is an endless, ever-changing maze. The walls of the maze move every night to create new paths and new dead ends. As if solving a gigantic maze wasn’t challenging enough, these boys, known as Gladers, must survive the dreadful, deadly monsters that inhabit it, if they hope to one day solve the maze. The maze is the only way out--though no one's ever made it through alive.
Knowing that he must unravel the maze in order to save himself and the other Gladers, Thomas joins the Runners, the small group of boys that venture into the maze each day, tirelessly looking for a way out.
Then a girl arrives. The first girl ever. And the message she delivers is terrifying: "Remember. Survive. Run." Knowing their time and supplies are running short, the Gladers take on the maze in for the fight of their lives.
To find out what happens to Thomas and the other Gladers, pick up The Maze Runner and the rest of James Dashner’s trilogy at the Sioux City Public Library.
