Overview: 2nd Book in Maze Runner Trilogy
Set in a post apocalyptic world ,The Scorch Trials, continue the story of the Gladers and thier struggle to discover the secrets of their origins. The tests are not over yet, they have escaped from the maze only to be thrown into a desert full of disease ridden citizens, freak lightning storms, and much much more. This book is fast paced and action packed. A good read for fans of science fiction futuristic novels.
Review: SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS
First off let me make it clear that the first book was no were near perfect. It was a decent first attempt, did not have any gaping plots holes, and had decent characters. Not great but certainly passable, I wish the same could be said for this book.
I thought the premise of this test being in the desert was cool and liked how the author included the victims of "The Flare" which was mentioned in the first book. These zombie like disease ridden people called "Cranks" mixed with the new location really got the ball rolling. The first hundred pages flew by and were quite enjoyable. It all seemed to be building to some sort of revelation.... that never came. In all 380pgs readers are left without a single new piece of information. Nothing about WICKED, the Gladers pasts, the purpose of these experiments, none of the thousands of questions left from the cliff hanger ending from book one were answered. There were also quite a few plot holes.
Thomas was very slow on figuring anything out. For instance his best friend Theresa has a tattoo on her neck that says betrayer and he is surprised when she betrays him. Also there were several places throughout the book were I figured things out before Thomas even gave it a second thought. If I the reader who is only slightly paying attention to the plot can figure out a plot twist that leaves Thomas wondering for pages and pages. His thoughts must go something like, my friend has betrayer tattooed on her neck and she is acting very strangely what could this possibly mean???? This must be some kind of trick what could betrayer mean? WHAT!!!! She betrayed me? HOW SHOCKING!!!! It becomes incredibly tedious waiting for him to figure out obvious clues.
Did I mention Thomas is basically the only character we hear ANYTHING about throughout the entire book. He doesn't know the names of half his companions. There are only twenty and even though he's spent about a month with them he still knows nothing about them. Nothing is mentioned about most of the other boys. And while there is a lot of death in this book none of it really touched me considering most of them went like this "A boy Thomas had never spoken to, fell beside him and didn't stir" How am I supposed to connect to that? The few character actually given personalities are talked about in the beginning and then merely mentioned by name in the action sequences later. Thomas is not a strong enough character to have an entire book about him.
Overall this book relied heavily on action scenes and a main character that falls rather flat. There are few new character and we are given no new information on old ones. This book is all filler and no real substance nothing new was revealed and like many other action trilogies it is a setup for book three with not enough new plot twists or information to keep me interested. I will read the third but do not have very high expectations.
