I recently finished reading The Maze Runner by James Dashner. The Maze Runner was published in 2009 and inspired two sequels, a prequel, and a second prequel set for release in 2016. It also inspired a movie in 2014. The main character in the book is a boy named Thomas. The book begins with Thomas waking up in an elevator. He doesn’t know where he is, and he doesn’t know how he got there, all he remembers is his name. When he gets to the top of the elevator, he is greeted by a group of boys about the same age as him. He is welcomed to his new home: “The Glade”. Nobody knows how they arrived in the Glade or why. The Glade is run by two boys named Alby and Newt, who make sure everybody does their fair share of work and stay orderly. Outside the Glade, there is a huge maze of moving walls. At night, the gates to the maze close and the Greivers come out. The Greivers are horrible gelatinous creatures with an appetite for blood. One of the jobs is the runners, who go out during the day and map the wall movements. The day after Thomas arrives, another person arrives in the elevator, which is considered strange because usually it happens once a month. Even stranger, it’s a girl who arrives muttering prophetic words before going into a coma. Everything changes after the girl, named Theresa, arrives. The packages stop coming, the sun disappears, and the gates stop closing at night, allowing Greivers to come in the Glade and pick off boys one by one. The boys realize that the maps of the maze spell out a code when stacked on top of each other and that the hole the Greivers come out of is an exit. The majority of the boys decide it’s time to pack it up and get out before the Greivers kill everybody, and are able to fight their way the the exit. When there, they realize the code is a password that unlocks the door, and some of the boys and Teresa are able to escape. After escaping, they find out the whole thing was an experiment by a group called WICKED. The boys are “rescued” by a mysterious group who tells them the world has been destroyed by a disease called the Flare. My favorite quote from the book is “If you ain’t scared, you ain’t human”. Overall, I enjoyed this book and I would give it an 8.5 out of 10. I would recommend this book to a friend. After reading this book, I have met my goal of 20 books for the year because I read about 25 books this year.