Read History
2025 | Score: 8
I like these books, nostalgic for the time in high school I was reading the prequel and playing a dark room and then went indoor skydiving in the dark in the fall.
Format: Book
Days: 3
Date: 10/6/2025 -> 10/9/2025
Summary
The Maze Runner
James Dashner
The Mazer Runner #1
Thomas wakes up in a box. Remembering no proper nouns but his name. The box opens to a nice meadow forest farm place and lots of teenage boys. Alby and Newt are in charge and no one can give him straight answers, because they don’t really know.
Thomas learns they are inside a big maze. He befriends the young Chuck. Gally hates him. Thomas learns that grievers are big fleshball monsters that roll around the maze and can sting people, causing something called “The Changing” where you get some memories back. Ben, who just went through the changing, tried to kill Thomas in the woods and Alby shoots him with a bow and arrow. He doesn’t die so they “Banish” him, throw him out in the maze at night to be horrifically killed by the grievers.
Suddenly another person shows up, not supposed to happen for a month. And a girl! She has a note saying everything is going to change and says she is the last one, but she is in a coma so no help. Thomas feels like he recognizes her.
Minho and Alby are trying to get out of the maze, Alby is hurt, so Thomas runs in to help right as the doors close. He saves Alby by tying him high up with ivy. Him and Minho do some ninja stuff and end up making the grievers fall down “The Cliff”, a seemingly endless expanse where stuff falls forever.
Thomas is now Mr. Popular. Some hate him for no reason. He is made a runner after serving one day in prison for breaking the rules. Gally has vanished. Thomas and Minho explore the maze together but find nothing.
The next morning they wake up to the sky being gray. This combined with the fact that it never rains makes them think that the sky is fake. Teresa (the girl) wakes up and her and Thomas can communicate telepathically. WICKED are the people who sent them here. Teresa wrote “WICKED is good” on her arm before losing her memories, and she gave Thomas the hint that the maze is a code.
The doors don’t close that night, and Gally shows up again. He says the grievers will kill one a night. They take him and leave. Thomas and Minho go explore the cliff, and discover a spot where rocks vanish. It is an illusion and the secret hole the grievers come from. “Someone” burns the maps of the maze in the map room (it was Alby). But luckily Minho and Newt hid them! Them, Thomas, and Teresa go examine them and discover you need to overlay all sections of the maze each day to get a letter. How they did not realize this in 2 years is beyond me. They spell out some random words.
Thomas intentionally goes through the changing to remember what to do. He learns they have to go through the griever hole to escape, and the code words will shutdown everything. Argument. Most come. They fight a ton of grievers, Alby sacrifices himself. Teresa, Chuck, and Thomas get the words in and the grievers shut down. 21 out of 4ish survive, including Newt and Minho. They walk further and find a ton of scientists observing them behind glass, it is all an experiment to find brave young men. Gally and the lead science lady walk in. She is pleased. Gally throws a knife at Thomas but Chuck jumps to intercept it. Chuck dies. Thomas “kills” Gally. Suddenly armed militants break in and shoot every scientist and usher the children out. They get on a bus and see a crazy lady. Someone tells them she has “The Flare” a virus they are supposedly immune to and why they were tested. They are taken to a facility and given pizza so they know they are safe. Go to bed. THE END.