The Death Cure is a YA sci-fi dystopia by James Dashner and the third novel in The Maze Runner trilogy.As always in a series of any sort, a synopsis will give away hefty spoilers of the previous books, so if you have not yet read The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trials (books one and two), you should avoid this review. Don’t make me the cause of the ruination of your reading experience!!!
Now, I am trusting, bibliophile to bibliophile, that you who are still reading have been following the James Dashner trilogy and will not be spoiled by anything below. Okay then…
The Death Cure opens where The Scorch Trials left off. After trekking through the charred, dead lands of the Scorch in search of the “safe haven” WICKED promised, the Gladers are exhausted. They’ve lost more friends to the cruel trials and tests these mad scientists have put them through and are certainly not going to trust their assurances the testing is over.
Yet Thomas has now seen firsthand the virus called the Flare and what it turns a human being into – a mindless, insane, bloodthirsty shell of their former self. WICKED claims to have put them through everything they have in order to form a blueprint to cure the Flare, but Thomas must undergo one final test to complete it.
Like Thomas would believe a word they say.
However, Thomas has begun to remember more of his past on his own and he’s ready to bring the truth to light. He’s done playing WICKED’s games. He’s done watching noble kids die for the “greater good”.
The time for lies is over.
Alrighty. So, you already know that I really enjoyed The Maze Runner. I also liked The Scorch Trials quite a bit, though my enthusiasm waned a bit as the story continued in that one. Now, on the third and final book in the series, I really had high hopes that I would find an exciting conclusion.
Yet…
The best part about the series, in my opinion, was the psychological thriller portion of it. The pieces of the puzzle that we were putting together with Thomas. The insanity, the twists, etc. Once James Dashner made WICKED’s intentions clear, however, that kind of went out the window. The Scorch Trials still had elements of it, which is why I still liked it, though the revelations fell a little flat for me when it came to the reasoning behind the trials.
Now, The Death Cure has essentially none of those plot points that I liked best about the first two books. Thomas is escaping WICKED, which is great and all, but none of the cool, sci-fi bewilderment is in there anymore. Everything is about the Flare. And though people that have the Flare are creepy, it’s a glorified zombie virus that doesn’t feel as fresh as being part of an experiment.
Sadly, I was rather disappointed with this final book. You could totally disagree! Read it for yourself, of course! Personally, it didn’t take the story in the direction I wanted – and the cohesiveness really fell apart for me in The Death Cure.
I’m still interested in reading the prequel The Kill Order when it comes out – but I can’t help but hope there’s some shockers in there that shake up the meaning of The Death Cure. I was left feeling a bit cold.
Not every book meets our expectations. But The Death Cure may certainly meet yours. Don’t miss out on forming your own opinion about how Thomas’ story plays out!
*By the way, this week will be the last week in the foreseeable future that I will have five posts a week. Starting on Monday March 5th, I will be returning to three reviews a week – Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I’m sure we’ll have another month or two in 2012 of five reviews a week, but let’s give our bibliophile selves a little time to breathe for a while, agreed? :)
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