The Maze Runner is one of the more well-known YA action/adventure books, highly acclaimed for its heart-pounding action and shocking twists. From the very beginning, it’s rife with mysteries and questions waiting to be answered.

Despite its popularity, I actually only recently started reading the series, and I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly I became invested in the story. So, if you’re finally thinking of giving it a shot yourself, you’re in the right place.

That said, let’s get to it!

The Maze Runner by James Dashner Overview

The Maze Runner stars Thomas, a sixteen-year-old boy whose only memory is his name. He doesn’t remember where he comes from, who his family is, or anything that happened before waking up in a strange lift that brings him up into the Glade, a walled sanctuary in the heart of an ever-changing maze.

In the Glade, Thomas is met with a whole society of boys like him, all with no memory of their pasts and no clue how or why they’d come to be in the Glade in the first place. They do know one thing, however: The only way out of the Glade is through the maze. The only trouble is that no one has ever been able to find any sort of exit. Aside from the constantly changing corridors, the maze is filled with dangers, primarily the monstrous Grievers that prowl its endless halls at night and leave their victims with a horrible affliction that causes them to “change,” though no one seems inclined to tell Thomas how so.

As if things can’t get any stranger, it’s not long after Thomas wakes up in the Glade that a girl arrives—the only girl to ever set foot there. Her arrival kicks off a series of catastrophic events that threaten to tear the semblance of order that the boys of the Glade have managed to construct apart, and it’s not long before Thomas and his newfound allies are faced with an impossible task: Escape the maze, or die.

Personal Thoughts

If you’re into fast-paced, action-packed reads, this is the book for you. It’s loaded with twists, memorable characters, and a part that made me want to throw the book at the wall. (And it usually takes a lot for a book to make me mad, so it’s no joke.)

While it is dystopian, like I mentioned in the info box, it leans more towards science fiction than anything for the most part, at least in this first book, as the dystopian-ness is more in the background. If you’re familiar with the Hunger Games, you can basically think of it like that, but where the games are starting right at the beginning of the book with no past context. 

Well, that’s all for this month’s reading recommendation. I hope I’ve piqued your interest about this book and convinced you to give it a shot. Or, if you’ve already read it, feel free to look into some of the similar books that I’ve listed below.

Until next time, happy reading!

Books Similar to the Maze Runner

• Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding