The Maze Runner: Maze Runner Trilogy, Book 1

This book was in the reading list for my 7th grader and I was shocked to see how gruesome it is. The story itself can be appealing if you like dystopian novels, it's written in an engaging way, with a unique language, often finishing the chapters on a cliffhanger. The story is about a group of teenager boys and one teenager girl who mysteriously end up in a strange place with their memory wiped, and their job is trying to solve a maze populated by strange and surreal creatures that like to eat the kids. Each kid as a job: there is one that prepare the food for the community, some that are running the maze every day to try solve it, some that are considered doctors of some sorts, some other that take care of the crops and what not. Every week they receive goods for their survival in a box, and also instructions on what to do. At some point the girl arrived in this boy-filled community, to much surprise to everyone. The girl is comatose, we don't know if she is going to die. A lot of kids die in the community if they get attacked by the creatures in the maze. Some kids survive as they are given a serum, and their memories are returned after going through some excruciating pain that changes their bodies and features to a monster-likelihood. With their memory back, these kids go insane for the pain and shock of their past. Some kids try to kill other kids. There are a lot of blood scenes. I took notes for the first 15 chapters than had to stop as the gruesomeness of it all was going to be too much to keep track of. Here is what I found: Chapter 10 – description of a rotting corpse (half upper body of a boy cut in half) in the graveyard, inside a window so everybody could see it as a warning. Chapter 11 – A boy gets killed violently because he disobeyed an order: description of his head snapped in an unnatural position and description of blood gushing out. Chapter 14 – a boy, Ben, is descriptively tortured by being dragged with a collar against his will to be pushed to the maze at night, and the reader can make the inference that he will die badly because of the creatures in there. As an adult you may or may not like this book depending on the type of books you like to read. But I would not want any middle schooler to read this type of book, too much of an unnecessary blood/murder/torture description. Be aware!

This book may be written at a middle school reading level, but the content is definitely for more mature readers. Why? - 1. Although the characters don’t use any “curse words”, there is a made up language used and the conversations are FULL of curses and put downs in that language. I would say almost every sentence they speak. It’s a rude and degrading atmosphere created by their words. 2. Some reviews mention cannibalism. I didn’t get that from the scene. More animal instinct attack. But still, in this instance and others the boys attack each other physically. And not just boys will be boys wrestling or fist fights. 3. There were two scenes that made my mind up about my tween not reading it yet. One involves a fairly realistic and overly detailed death of a main character near the end and how another character handles it. Another involves a vehicle/human encounter that I felt was also too detailed. I can’t say more without spoiling the ending. But if you are trying to decide if your child should read it, you need to read the last few chapters and find these scenes. That said, once you get past a slowish beginning it’s suspenseful and has some good messages and strong characters (teamwork, rule following to keep order in society, being innovative, risk taking, etc). I almost want to read the next one.