The Maze Runner is an artfully written suspense filled dystopian novel. This book was so first-rate that I read it in less than a day, and I’m talking about a day that I had school, filled with classes in which I should be doing school work. I loved every second of this book, well except for maybe the ending, but that is only because it leaves you desperate for the sequel which sadly won’t hit stores until next year (I actually screamed when I learned this).

In the Maze Runner Thomas wakes up to find that he is in a dark metal room moving upward and he can’t remember anything about himself with the exception of his first name. He soon learns that he has been sent to a place known as the glade located in the centre of a vast stone maze. Thomas is not alone in the glade, there are many who arrived before him who have established something of a homestead while attempting to solve the puzzle of the maze. You follow Thomas as he discovers the secrets and conspiracy of the maze, and those behind it. The puzzle soon becomes life or death once a girl arrives in the glade for the first time ever with the message; “Everything is going to change.”

Dashner is a very skilled visual writer. He paints a picture in your mind as if you were watching it all play out in front of you. His world comes off as real as our own, even the villainous beasts he creates to torment the protagonists ring true; “It looked like an experiment gone terribly wrong-something from a nightmare. Part animal, part machine, the Griever rolled and clicked along the stone pathway.”

The characters created to occupy this horrific vision of the future are just as real as the world. You would think that characters that have no memory of who they are would come across as two-dimensional and boring. Instead their lack of memory makes them all the more interesting, they still are individuals with different personalities, and mannerisms, the just don’t remember what events shaped them to be this way. For example, at one point in the story Thomas is forced between saving himself or helping someone else, the choice he makes reflects the kind of person he is and what morals that person upholds.

Now you would imagine that with such an amazing setting and characters that the plot would be where this book would find its weakness, but that is not the case. The plot is daring and suspenseful; taking sharp twists and turns, without losing the stories integrity. The most intriguing mystery not being how to escape the maze, but who created it and why? The story combines action and inner conflict skillfully creating a plot that anybody could appreciate.

Overall I would give this book a 5/5 and the honour of being my favorite book yet. With any luck the sequel “The Scorch Trials” will be not only as amazing but better enough to usurp this honour. So my final recommendation is to put this at the top of your reading list and to come back and tell me what you thought.