FINISHED:

Dashner, James. (2009). The maze runner. New York: Delacorte/Random House.

[LOVED THIS. BEST YA BOOK OF THE YEAR, in my opinion.

Thomas wakes in a freight elevator to find himself in the middle of a wide glade surrounded by towering, vine-covered walls, without any memory of who he is or where he may have come from. Similarly, the other boys he comes to meet in the Glade have no idea how they got there or how to get out: there are doors in the walls which lead to various mazes, but the mazes change every day and are filled, at night, with hideous beasts they have named Grievers. When a girl appears in the elevator the day after Thomas arrives remarking, “Everything is going to change,” Thomas and the other boys, some with hostile accusations, begin to wonder if this all doesn’t have something to do with him. Thomas is a likeable character through whose eyes the reader gets to also experience and unravel the bewildering events, and sprinkled throughout are bizarre and intriguing clues to who or what may be behind the maze (beetles with the word WICKED printed on their backs? a cliff in the middle of the maze which leads to nowhere?) which will keep readers enthralled and guessing. Dashner’s novel, the first in a trilogy, is a page-turning dazzler with chapter cliffhangers which demand continuing on to the next chapter. Definitely hand this one to those who are thirsting for other dystopian thrillers like Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games (Scholastic, 2008).]

STARTED:
Anderson, M.T. (2005). Whales on stilts. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Inc.

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