The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Do you really need a synopsis for this one? I didn't think so. But here goes anyway!

After a harrowing ride in a lift, Tom finds himself in a glade surrounded by boys. Some of them have been there for more than two years. No one remembers anything from their past. Their goal? Solve the maze and escape back to reality. But the maze is riddled with monsters. And then another person is sent up the lift - a girl. And then ...

There were so many elements in this book that were so up my aisle, I am not sure why I didn't love it. I enjoy puzzles, so the idea of the maze in this book really appealed to me. I enjoy discovering things about characters, and this book had that for absolutely every character. The characters had so much potential to be great, but I didn't find myself really caring about them. At the end, when tragedy struck, I found myself wishing that Dashner would just get on with it and stop trying to convince me that my heart should be bleeding, because, and I am sorry to say this, it wasn't. I liked the guy, but... apparently not enough.

Maybe I am just being unfair. Perhaps it is that I am not in the mood to read YA at the moment, and am doing it as a labour for work and not for my own enjoyment. Maybe it was all the hype surrounding this. Having said that, the premise behind the story was brilliant. 

This book would work well for high school aged kids. It is fast paced, and in the slower bits, it is asking so many questions that those pages just keep turning.

Overall, while not my favourite read of the year so far, it is not the worst.

I gave this 3 stars on Goodreads, although if I were younger, it probably would have been higher.

This is the 6th book completed for the 2015 TBR Pile Reading challenge! Woot!