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jenkepesh 's review for:
The Maze Runner
by James Dashner
A student who is tough to interact with brought this book to me because he loved it and wanted me to read it. Not surprisingly, it's not a book I enjoyed: 10-year-old boys seldom have the same taste as their teacher. It's not the *kind* of book I enjoy. Its dystopian, borrowing a little from Lord of the Flies and a little from The Hunger Games, though it is original enough in plot. Teen boys left alone for two years, a new one added each month, many dying from attack by half machine/half squishy amorphous beings called Grievers. A girl arrives, and she's such a complete token, I was deeply disappointed. The discovery that there is a They who have created these conditions for a good-on-paper but deeply immoral plot. And these two elements are the problems to me. I don't like a book aimed at middle school boys to drop a teen girl into the middle of a plot simply to be beautiful and a potential love interest. And I really don't like creating the cultural expectation of shadowy elites who would spend any amount of money and use the lives of others simply for a power trip.
What will I say to my student, whose fervor I don't want to spoil? I will tell him that the plot was exciting, that I think it was interesting to have the boys self-organize a farm to care for themselves and wonder if that's what people would really do--I would hope so; I will tell him that I could see through they eyes of the protagonist how tough decisions are about telling the truth which might go the wrong way. I will say I can sure understand how he'd be caught up in the excitement of the series. And if he asks if I like it, I will say it's in a genre of books that make me uncomfortable, but that it's ok to be unsettled by literature.
What will I say to my student, whose fervor I don't want to spoil? I will tell him that the plot was exciting, that I think it was interesting to have the boys self-organize a farm to care for themselves and wonder if that's what people would really do--I would hope so; I will tell him that I could see through they eyes of the protagonist how tough decisions are about telling the truth which might go the wrong way. I will say I can sure understand how he'd be caught up in the excitement of the series. And if he asks if I like it, I will say it's in a genre of books that make me uncomfortable, but that it's ok to be unsettled by literature.