Book review: “The Death Cure” by James Dashner

By: Lucyinthesky

*SPOILER ALERT*

I have to rely on spoilers (only a few) because I need to explain my point of view on the book by explaining some details. Don’t worry, I’ll try to keep them minimum!

*SPOILER ALERT*

Finally, I figured out a way to put my thoughts together about the third and final book to ‘The Maze Runner’ trilogy, this one titled “The Death Cure”. Excitement was an understatement, the way the second book of the series, “The Scorch Trials” left us yet with another cliffhanger and a lot of questions unanswered. We left of with Thomas and what was left of The Gladers finishing the Trials, finally making it to the safe haven, with the promise that they would get a cure for the disease they all carry called The Flare, that is swiping humanity at an incredible rate.

“The Death Cure” begins with Thomas alone in his room, in “The Scorch Trials” everyone had been isolated into separate rooms and weeks passed by and Thomas had no contact whatsoever with any humans. His mind was full with questions: why were all of them being isolated? Why he can’t communicate to Teresa anymore?  Why would she say “WICKED is good”? All of these feelings turning into a rage, Thomas started to feel more angry every single day, wondering when the door will open for him to find out what WICKED’s next plan for him will be. However, once the door opened, he was surprised to see the Rat Man, remember that creepy dude from the beginning of “The Scorch Trials”? WICKED’s doctor? Well he’s back, to tell Thomas and the rest of the Gladers and girls from Group B how are they going to help WICKED achieve their blueprint to design a cure for the Flare, WICKED apparently lied and only some of them DO have the Flare and some are immune to it, and not only that, everyone has the choice to get their memories back.

Thomas is frustrated to find out that some of his friends have the Flare, not only that, he does not want to get his memories back. He decides to find a way to escape the WICKED headquarters, while some of his friends, including Teresa, opt to get their memories back and find out who they really were before they were thrown into the Maze. Throughout the book, Thomas doesn’t know who to believe in, he thinks everything is another variable or test, he can’t even trust his own friend, Teresa, because she’s being so lenient with WICKED, he ends up only trusting his own self when it comes to making decisions.

The book progressed very fast, every chapter left me with “OMG! What’s going to happen next?“, it was seriously hard for me to put it down because in this one there were far more questions then answers, a lot of betrayals, plot twists etc. I ended up being like Thomas, skeptical about everyone and everything, but at the same time I believe this book even though is the last one left me with more questions unanswered. At points, I would feel like the plot went way ahead of itself, throwing unnecessary fights and explosions that in my opinion blocked further character development. I can tell you right now, I don’t know Thomas character completely, because if he had gotten his memories back I would understand more what was really going on and perhaps have that “Oh I get it” moment that I was looking forward so much while reading “The Death Cure”. Some other characters do get their memories back but basically you don’t even see them until the end of the book when they just decide to show up, they don’t even talk about what happened. I was expecting to read “The Death Cure” and understand everything that happened in the previous books, but even the ending is open to multiple possiblities, you really don’t know exactly how it concludes.

Furthermore, there were unnecessary deaths I’m not going to say who, but Mr Dashner, come on man.. really? I feel as if the whole “love triangle” that we, as readers, thought was going on was never developed in “The Death Cure” and of course, I was left with more questions than answers. However, the book in my opinion was okay, I was just perhaps expecting too much, this whole build up of Thomas finding a way to escape the headquarters, going to the outside world, finding out some of his friends will eventually turn into Cranks, etc I thought I was going to get a conclusion to what WICKED really is and who Thomas really was and what will he do next.

If anyone that is reading this that already finished the book and knows exactly the LOCATION at the end of it, please Tweet me or leave me a comment here. Because I really do not know.

In my opinion, “The Maze Runner” trilogy is mysterious, action packed, schocking at times and overall a good read, while is good to keep some of the events still a mystery and make WICKED more secretive than it already is, I feel like the book was mainly full of loose ends and failed to provide a conclusion to the story.

Should you read “The Maze Runner” trilogy? YES! It’s a good series of books, just remember that when you get to the third and final one, you’re probably going to keep those same questions you had at the beginning.