The Scorch Trials
by James Dashner
Date Read: 9/14/16
Rating: ★ ★ ★
Rating: ★ ★ ★
The entire time I was reading this story I was blown away by
how different it was from the movie. For both “The Maze Runner” and “The Scorch
Trials” I had watched the movie first. I
love the movies, I’m just wondering why they chose to make the second movie so
vastly different from the book. It’s almost just loosely based on the
book. But that also made it fun to read
the book because I still wasn’t sure what to expect.
I feel like this book was a little slower than the first
book. Most of the book was about the gang traveling across the desert. Yeah, there were some action scenes here and
there, but it was still basically just a traveling book. I wish it had been a little more exciting and
diverted from the Scorch more often.
Thomas also passed out or slept (and dreamed) a LOT
throughout this book. It really slowed
everything down. While I get that the author is making it real, it just really
stopped the story and jarred me out of my rhythm.
The change between Thomas and Teresa in this book was done
really well, I thought. It was very believable and just like Thomas, the reader
has no idea who to trust. I definitely have some strong emotions about this and
I tend to side with Thomas.
Several new characters are introduced in this book. Aris is
an interesting character. I’m still on the fence about him. I liked Brenda a
lot…but I didn’t like how forward she was. But once I got past that I really
liked her.
We get a little bit more information on what the world is
like now. There are still plenty of questions left open. The main ones being “What
the heck is the killzone?” and “How is torturing children going to create a
cure?”. Dashner does a wonderful job of
giving you just enough to keep reading and wanting so much more. Curious as to
what this is all really about.
I hated the ending. It felt like the author just had a long
story and decided to chop it right there. There was absolutely no wrap up at
all. The story just ended. All of a sudden there were no more pages. What the
heck? Ok, I get that you want a cliffhanger, but you can still successfully
have a cliffhanger in your book while still having a little wrap up in other
areas.
A little disappointed in this book following The Maze
Runner. It’s still entertaining enough to get through, but it definitely took
me a while to get through it … i.e. had to re-request from the library several
times before I finished it… I’m looking forward
to reading The Death Cure to finally get some answers and see how this series
ends.
