September 15, 2011

An explosive ending to The Maze Runner trilogy.

Thomas and the rest of the survivors of the Maze and the Scorch Trials are being held at WICKED (World in Catastrophe, Killzone Experiment Department) headquarters. Subjected to even more tests, they've learned enough to know that they're all part of a massive experiment to find a cure for the pandemic Flare disease. But does any cure justify what they've been put through? Or the engineered deaths of their friends? It's hard to believe that "WICKED is good," even though that's the message they're bombarded with. Discouraged, rebellious and definitely not trusting, Thomas, Newt, Minho, Brenda and Jorge break out and escape to Denver, now a walled city meant to be reserved for the uninfected and the immune. But it's all too clear that Newt has already been infected and is teetering on the verge of madness. It's equally clear that WICKED has put a bounty on their heads and won't rest until they have these survivors back in hand—especially Thomas, who may have been part of all the experiments from the very beginning and is now the Final Candidate. Dashner again displays his mastery of the action sequence, making readers turn pages even as they become further invested in the well-developed characters.

Heart pounding to the very last moment. (Science fiction/thriller. 12 and up)

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

February 1, 2012

Gr 7 Up-In this final book in the series, Thomas and his friends learn that the World in Catastrophe, Killzone Experiment Department (WICKED) wants to devise a blueprint for a cure for the lethal Flare disease by analyzing their brain patterns. Although Thomas knows that he was partially responsible for the creation of the Maze, a brutal experiment that forces its subject to undergo trials and tribulations, he no longer thinks the end justifies the means-even if the goal is to save mankind. Despite his friend Teresa's continued protestations that WICKED is good, Thomas disagrees. His memories have started to come trickling back. He decides, with a few others, to break out of its headquarters. The group journeys to Denver, a city fruitlessly trying to keep the Flare at bay. Without a maze to escape from or a predetermined location to journey toward, the plot meanders. Thomas and his allies join forces with the Right Arm, a revolutionary organization determined to bring WICKED down. Like most things in the gripping series, good and evil are not black and white. WICKED, the Right Arm, and even Thomas all initially act with good intentions but make questionable moral choices along the way. Thomas's struggle to understand this contradiction makes the novel interesting. Fans of the previous books may be disappointed that many questions are left unanswered, but most of them will be satisfied with the conclusion.-Ragan O'Malley, Saint Ann's School, Brooklyn, NY

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2011
Grades 9-12 The nonstop, gruesome action of the first two books in the Maze Runner trilogy helped distract from some tenuous plot logic and the complete stonewalling of crucial information. This grim conclusion finally addresses the truth behind WICKEDthe organization that basically subjects teen lab rats to torture and slaughter in order to map their brains for a cure to a worldwide virus that is turning people into psychopathic lunaticsand does so with a fitting dose of moral ambiguity, while everything else kind of falls by the wayside. Readers who have stuck it out this far will need this bumpy, bloody finale.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2012
WICKED claims it's close to discovering a cure to the epidemic Flare--but it needs Thomas. Distrustful, Thomas and several friends escape from the compound and plot to subvert the seemingly evil organization. This morally ambiguous and dark story brings the series (The Maze Runner, The Scorch Trials) to a thought-provoking conclusion.

(Copyright 2012 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)