The Kill Order by James Dashner (CBR-IV #36)

Cannonball Read IV: Book #36/52
Published: 2012
Pages: 336
Genre: Young Adult/Dystopian

Previous review of this series:
The Maze Runner
The Scorch Trials
The Death Cure

The Kill Order is a prequel to the popular YA "The Maze Runner" series. If you've read my other reviews, you know how much of a love/hate relationship I have with these books. This one was no exception, although I had slightly different reasons for hating this one.

My absolute favorite part of this book? No stupid Glader slang! I was hoping without that fake cursing distraction that I could get more into this book. Unfortunately, a complete lack of character development kept me from doing so. These characters were so cookie cutter and boring. Mark is our main character. Other than that, he barely has a personality. He teamed up with an older military couple after the solar flares destroyed most of earth. He has a girlfriend (I think? It's not totally clear what their exact relationship is) named Trina.

After surviving the initial solar flares, the group of four find their way to a nice little village of survivors and live happily. At least until an aircraft lands in town and guys come out and shoot the village people with plague-ridden darts. The four main characters fight back and take over the ship. In the quest to figure out what the heck is going on, the two women get taken by a crazy religious cult.

Basically, this book is fight scene, escape scene, fight scene, escape scene, blah blah blah. It gets really repetitive and boring, especially considering it takes half the book to get the blah characters straightened out. I was really hoping for a prequel that explained more how WICKED was formed and followed Thomas before he was put into the maze. There is a preface in the book that tells a tiny bit about Thomas, but other that it's all new characters. 

The Death Cure by James Dashner (CBR-III #38)

Cannonball Read III: Book #38/52
Published: 2011
Pages: 256 (15,585 total pages so far)
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

***This is the third book in a trilogy. There could possibly be spoilers if you haven't read the first two books.***

Previous reviews in this series:

The Maze Runner

The Scorch Trials

If you've read my previous reviews on this series, you know I have a love/hate relationship with these books. To sum it up quickly, I am completely enthralled by the mystery and the plot but I really hate the execution of the writing. My previous reviews (linked above) go more in depth with my thoughts so I'm not going to rehash it all here.

The basic plot follows a group of kids who were put into a mysterious maze in the first book. After they figure out how to escape, they go through the second faze if the government trials in The Scorch Trials. There they find out that most of the world is falling apart due to a virus called "The Flare" and they were part of an experiment being conducted by a group called WICKED to find a cure. In this final book of the trilogy, the group of kids escape from the WICKED compound and try and stop them from continuing their "trials".

The characters were still kind of blah. After reading all three books, I should know these characters pretty well. However, I was still struggling to remember who was who and who did what. Occasionally someone will die and you have to think for a second who that person actually was.

I'm not even going to get into how irritating I find their made up, slang curse words again. It's just annoying. Thankfully, it was slightly toned down from the first two books.

As for the ending, I knew all along I was probably going to be disappointed. I did like how they made a full circle and had to go back to the maze towards the end, but that part was kind of rushed. Actually, the whole ending seemed sort of rushed, like it was thrown together at the last minute.

As much as I am intrigued by the plot of these books, it's really confusing. I never did figure out how exactly they're going to find a cure for a deadly disease by putting a bunch of teenagers through life threatening and horrible situations. A lot of things were never really fully explained or were explained horribly - such as whether or not Thomas should get his memory back. Did it really matter if he did or didn't? They made an awful big deal about it, but it seems like it didn't really effect anything in the long run.

I know I like to complain about these books, yet I keep reading them. I really do like the plot lines and the books move very quickly. There are more twists and turns than in any book I've ever read. It's really hard to put this book down once you start. I can't quite explain why, but as irritated as I might get at this series, I constantly need to know what happens next.

The Scorch Trials by James Dashner

The Scorch Trials
Cannonball Read 2011 #3
384 pages

The Scorch Trials is the sequel to The Maze Runner, which I reviewed back in May. This time, the group of boys from the maze find themselves put through another mysterious "trial" while Thomas tries to piece together his past. Again, the plot is extremely interesting to me, but the execution is sub-par.

I still absolutely hate the made-up slang that the boys use. It's so distracting from the story and just makes me think that they're using it as an excuse to add curse words to a YA book. It's obvious that the words are just fill-ins for common curse words (i.e. "shuckface" or "piece of klunk") and it does nothing to further the story or add to anything.

Also, what kind of crack is this guy on that thinks of this stuff? The first book was more puzzles and this one just throws everything out into left field. We have metal balls that eat peoples heads (which are never explained), giant faceless creatures with orange bulbs growing off of them, and diseased crazy people called Cranks - and that's just to name a few. You're constantly being hit over the head with just straight-up weirdness.

I also can't help but wish that James Dashner just sold his idea to a different writer. I hate his execution. The world he created is so creative and so original, but I can't help but think think that everything is going to lead up to a very disappointing ending. You're not going to find any answers in this book. I'm not sure how many books he has planned for this series, but I'm guessing we'll have to wait until the very last one to get any answers. It's almost as bad as Lost.

I'll probably continue reading this series just because I LOVE the whole idea behind the books. I love puzzles and dystopian futures and mysteries. I just really wish these books were as good as I want them to be. All I can say is that there better be a good payoff at the end.

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

"The Maze Runner" is a YA book about a boy named Thomas who wakes up in a The Glade with his memory erased. The Glade is a large open area surrounded by huge stone walls and there are other boys inside who came the same way Thomas did, only earlier. Outside of the walls is a maze, but no one can find a way out. The walls only open during the day light and no one wants to be caught in the mazes after dark.

I liked:
-It has a very interesting plot, which made me want to keep reading. I love puzzles and mazes and I just had to see how (or if) they found a way out.
-The plot moved along quickly without a bunch of fluff thrown in.

However, a few things were really irritating.

I did not like:

-I really hated the slang that the author made up for the Glade boys. It distracted from the story and was really stupid sounding (i.e. "Shuckface").
-The "grievers" were really odd and hard to imagine. I like being able to imagine things when I read a book and these were just so odd that it was really hard.
-The fact that I basically finished it because I HAD to know how they solved the maze. It wasn't because I cared about the characters. The characters were pretty boring and unmemorable.

I'd give it a 2/5. Interesting concept, not so great execution.