Series Recommend: Maze Runner Trilogy

I have really come to appreciate the book series. Sometimes I struggle finding books to read that intrigue me and a good book series does the book planning for you. In honor of my occasional reading laziness I'm going to do a series of posts about different book series (serieses? series-usis?) that you may enjoy.

Due to the nature of it being a series some things may get a little *spoilery*. I will do my very best to keep it to a minimum, just enough to intrigue you to read them.

The first series we are going to talk about is the Maze Runner trilogy by James Dashner. I heard about this series from watching an interview with Elizabeth Banks. An interviewer was asking her if she had read the Hunger Games series previous to being cast as Effie Trinket, she said that she hadn't but that she read them after she had been cast and it reminded her of the Maze Runner trilogy which she really enjoyed.

If it's good enough for someone from the Capitol it's good enough for us schmucks

The first book is Maze Runner.

It starts with our main character,Thomas waking up in a box. He doesn't know why he's there, he doesn't know how he got there, he doesn't know anything about himself, all he knows is that his name is Thomas. The box opens and he's surrounded by a group of boys, all about his age. He finds out that the box is kind of like an elevator from an unknown location to where they are now, the Glades. The Glades is a big open area surrounded by a complex maze. The maze is inhabited by things called Grievers (which sound gross by the descriptions lots of fleshy bits and stingers). The Grievers sting brings back memories of your past but it's incredibly painful and potential fatal.

The boys are organized into a little community, each with their own jobs. There are a special group of boys whose soul job is to try to find the end to the maze. They go out running for hours a day, always sure to be back by dusk so that when the doors to the maze close they are not stuck in the maze with the Grievers.
The day after Thomas arrives another person arrives in the box/elevator. For the first time ever, the inhabitant is a girl and she comes bearing the message that she is the last person that will be sent. Then she goes into a coma.

Thomas proves himself an valuable community member and becomes a head runner. He even saves some of his fellow runners by tricking some Grievers to fall of "the cliff" at the edge of the maze. Thomas and the girl (Teresa) realize that they can communicate telepathically and she tells him that "the end" will begin soon.

A very chaotic next few days follow where they realize that the maze was never meant to be solved, it was just designed as test, a cruel joke by the people who put them there- The Creators.Once the mystery of the maze is solved, and with over half of their group killed by Grievers, they group finds themselves in a whole new scenario when the REAL trouble starts.

I'm not going to go into the second and third books but let's just say that the kids don't find themselves in a much better situation. There is intrigue, lies, betrayal and murder most foul....

If you're intrigued, pick them up at your local library!