The Maze Runner
Maze Runner Series
Science Fiction
Dell Publishing
400 pages
THE STORY:
Thomas finds himself in a place called the Glade with no memories about his past life expect only knowing his own name. There are other boys who live there but call themselves Gladers. Surrounding the Glade is a maze with dangerous creatures called Grievers roaming and living in it. At every sunset, the huge doors leading into the maze close at night so no one can try to find a way to escape. Once a month, a new person arrives in “The Box”, an elevator, where Thomas also had arrived in. Soon, during the week, another person arrives in “The Box”, but it’s a girl, which is a huge shocker on everyone there because only boys had arrived there. They never had two people arrive in the same month, much less two days in a row. Her name is Teresa and soon Thomas and her figure out they can have a telepathic connection to each other. The leader of the Gladers is Alby, one of the eldest kids and his best friend is Newt. Then there is the keeper of the runners (who are people who run into the maze and try to find a solution), Minho who is in charge of navigating and trying to find a way out of the maze. And lastly, there’s Gally, who shows a strong dislike toward thomas because of the memories he had regained while in the changing. The Gladers have to work together to find out how to escape the maze.
MY OPINION:
At first, the book seemed a bit boring because it was hard to understand what was going on but as I read on, I start to understand what is going on with the main characters and the plot. Some strong points was good conflict that interested me and good word choice.A weak point was that the book was not that interesting in the first few pages, but as I read on, I started to like this book. The author had used good word choice which helped me learn more vocabulary to add to my knowledge. The age group who would best enjoy the novel, would probably be middle schoolers because it seems to be near their reading level. If I could go back in time, I would choose this book again because it seemed interesting and my friends have talked about it before saying it was such a good book. I would give this book eight stars out of ten, ten being awesome, and one being horrible.
STUDY QUESTIONS AND VOCABULARY:
FIRST SECTION
1. Who is the main character and where does the story take place? Describe.
1a. Thomas is the main character and he finds himself landing in “The Box”, a place at the land of Glade, and he finds himself with no clear memory.
2. Why does Gally hate Thomas so much?
2a. Gally hates Thomas because Gally has seen him before (in the changing) and is not convince that Thomas has lost his memories, so Gally wants to know why he’s there again.
3. When Thomas entered the maze at night, what did he find?
3a. When Thomas entered the maze, he found graves of the people who died in the Glade.
4. Who was in the box the second time in two days?
4a. A half dead girl was found in the Box and the boys were surprised because she was a girl and was holding a note that said she was the last person to arrive there ever.
5. What did Thomas do when Alby and Minho arrived back?
5a. Thomas quickly leapt into the huge maze and the door closed behind him.
vertigo (pg 23)
milling (pg 54)
admiral (pg 83)
combust (pg 107)
recesses (pg 120)
MIDDLE SECTION
6. What did Thomas do when the Griever went toward him?
6a. Thomas’ only option was to run to the side, holding on to the vines as ropes.
7. What are Newt’s and Thomas’ opinions on why people call it the Changing?
7a. People in the changing are shown snippets of memories, but get them snatched away.
8. What was Gally’s reason for not trusting Thomas?
8a. Gally said after Thomas arrived, a girl comes, holding a note and saying everything is going to change. Many weird things start happening and Gally thinks they cannot trust Thomas.
9. What did Alby do to himself while Thomas started talking to him?
9a. Alby had started to choke himself by grabbing his own throat.
10. What had happened after Thomas said he knew the girl?
10a. The girl, Teresa’s voice started to communicate with him inside his head.
revved (pg 125)
stupor (pg 137)
remnant (pg 180)
haphazardly (pg 204)
contemplative (pg 224)
LAST SECTION
11.What did Gally do when he tried to go inside?
11a. He started saying that nobody is going to win. The Grievers would kill each one of them. He started pulling away the boards, allowing the Griever to go inside.12. What happened to the maps from the map room?.
12a. When the map room was burned down, Minho and Newt hid the maps because of Alby’s warning.
13. When they finally finished building the map, what did it show
13a. It looked like a checkered grid and sitting in the exact center of the page was the letter F and other letter soon followed, creating words.
14. What were all the words the map showed?
14a. Float, calm, bleed, death, stiff and push.
15. What did Thomas do when the Grievers took Dave away?
15a. Thomas jumped at the Griever so it could let go of Dave and Thomas himself got stung many times.
off-kilter (pg 252)
squelching (pg 259)
consoling (pg 279)
interminable (pg 297)
innovative (pg 323)