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I’ve recommended James Dashner’s 2009 novel The Maze Runner to a number of tweens and teens who have enjoyed it. I’m glad they kids are loving it because I did not. You can read the reasons in the review I wrote for a grad school class in YA literature.

The flaws in The Maze Runner kept me from picking up the second book. Recently, I was thinking, maybe I’ll give the series a second chance when I came across Pink Me‘s review of The Maze Runner.

http://pinkme.typepad.com/pink-me/2011/10/the-maze-runner-by-james-dashner-review.html#more

Pink Me pointed out that exposition was dribbled throughout the story, slowing the action. I think she nailed why I felt so disconnected from the protagonist Thomas. She also indicated that it was bad SF but didn’t detail her Flying Snowman moment (the point when she stopped believing the premise) for the book.

I wish she had. It would have been interesting to compare notes. I had a lot of moments when my disbelief failed to suspend. The killer was the sunspot rational for the zombies and scorched earth — very, very bad science that any fifth-grader with a search engine could figure out.

I’m also still annoyed that Dashner’s only female character was cross between a damsel in distress and a magical negro. Nothing says “Girls keep out of the boys clubhouse” like drugging the only female character so comatose throughout most of the book. The Maze Runner definitely fails The Bechdel Test.