Book Review: The Scorch Trials by James Dashner

Author: James Dashner
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Series or Stand-alone: 

            Book 2 in The Maze Runner Series:

                                                   My Review of Book 1: The Maze Runner
How I got it:
             From my friend who works at Scholastic
Pages: 360

Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers

Genre: Young Adult / Dystopian

First Published: October 12, 2010

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Book Trailer: 

FIRST LINE(S): "She spoke to him before the world fell apart."

The GIST (From Goodreads):

Solving the Maze was supposed to be the end. No more puzzles. No more variables. And no more running. Thomas was sure that escape meant he and the Gladers would get their lives back. But no one really knew what sort of life they were going back to. 

 In the Maze, life was easy. They had food, and shelter, and safety . . . until Teresa triggered the end. In the world outside the Maze, however, the end was triggered long ago. 

Burned by sun flares and baked by a new, brutal climate, the earth is a wasteland. Government has disintegrated—and with it, order—and now Cranks, people covered in festering wounds and driven to murderous insanity by the infectious disease known as the Flare, roam the crumbling cities hunting for their next victim . . . and meal. 

The Gladers are far from finished with running. Instead of freedom, they find themselves faced with another trial. They must cross the Scorch, the most burned-out section of the world, and arrive at a safe haven in two weeks. And WICKED has made sure to adjust the variables and stack the odds against them. 

Thomas can only wonder—does he hold the secret of freedom somewhere in his mind? Or will he forever be at the mercy of WICKED? 

OPINION:

I was pretty traumatized after reading The Maze Runner so when I was able to get this book it took me a long time to read it. I would leave it sitting on my bed or in my car or just laying around (sadly it’s very dirty now) because I was afraid of it. Like it might attack me or something. I had a strange paranoia that when I opened the book, things would get worse for The Gladers and I wasn’t emotionally ready for it.

And I was right, of course. The Scorch Trials dragged me through the dirt and sweltering desert with Thomas and his little band of friends who are just trying to survive. Little do they know that Dashner does not relent in his killing: many are burnt to a crisp by lightening, ripped apart by Cranks or suffer through any other kind of vicious death you can think of. They can trust nothing and no one. Everyone could and probably is working for WICKED. And that phrase again: WICKED IS GOOD. Somehow it makes my skin crawl every time it’s mentioned.  

What continues in this book that I loved in the first is the underlying mystery that goes along with it. Why is Thomas’ name plastered everywhere? Who are these new people he meets? Where’d Teresa go and why she is acting so strange? And poor old Thomas is just trying to figure everything out while protecting the people he cares about.

There were some things I didn’t like. Teresa, as always, annoyed me. I have no idea what Thomas sees in her other than remembrance of an old romance. Likely she wasn't in this book much. I did like Brenda a lot though.  I admit sometimes I stopped reading because it dragged like the long walk the Gladers take in the desert, I couldn’t see the end.

OVERALL: 

Traumatized and paranoid as I am, the Scorch Trial made me need more and that’s a great ending to a second book in a series.---9.0 out of 10