The Death Cure (Maze Runner, Book Three)

The Death Cure by James Dashner was a huge disappointment on top of an already average, poorly written trilogy.

Things That Bothered Me:

1. ridiculously clumsy dialogue
2. flat, boring, irritable, and one-dimensional characters
3. too many unanswered questions and unexplained plot
4. unsatisfying

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ending
6. insufficient character development

Things I loved:

1. face-paced and action-packed plot
2. some characters are much more likable than in previous books

Overall, this trilogy has great concepts and ideas but poorly executed and written, which is such a shame because it could have been an amazing series with another writer.

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Once again, don't feel guilty if you only read the first book in the trilogy. Books 2 and 3 add nothing of interest or note.

No, really, what did I read and why? James Dashner, what, what, what are you doing? There are a few cool reveals along the way, but as far as books go, this was not a satisfying conclusion to a trilogy. We get answers, but the one thing I wanted to know most of all (Thomas' past) remains a mystery.

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It felt like most of this book was pointless action that dragged on for no reason, so even though there were things happening, it felt like nothing was happening at all. The plot was not advanced. It was violence for the sake of violence. Theresa and Thomas were, at this point, the only two characters I cared about, and Teresa barely showed up at all in the entirety of the story. The ending was rushed, and yes, I enjoyed the few twists we got at the very end (the last page), but come on. This was a story that needed answers and plot twists and instead, we got epic battle scenes that I didn't care about in the slightest. This is not a movie. This is not that kind of book. More LOST, less epic ending of oh, I don't know, Harry Potter saga? When there's a book that I've been looking forward to for a long while, it really sucks to end up ultimately disappointed. I wish the story had been condensed into one book, because The Maze Runner was truly one of my favorite books, where the last two books were just pointless battle scenes one after the other.

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Unfortunately, I had the same reaction to this conclusion as I did to the conclusion of Divergent - disappointed and it didn't make sense. I also got rather tired of the no of fights. I may not know much about biology but I know enough that experiences do not make someone immune - either you catch

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a disease, suffer it and recover or you don't get it at all. Putting immune people through trials so at the end you can cut someone open and read their brain patterns - er, no - it doesn't work like that. You might possibly put all your immune people through testing, so you can find the best of them to seed a new colony to save humanity but killing half of them off for an unlikely cure is illogical. Surely, you'd send all your immune people somewhere safe to start again!.
Reading this and Divergent has made me realise quite how good The Hunger Games was - I wasn't disappointed in the ending of that.

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It seems that third books in trilogies always tend to let the reader down. Rarely are subsequent books as good as the first. I finished the second book in this series and wasn't sure how I felt about it. I find that I have a similar feeling with this last installment. Lots of reviewers have been

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harsh with this one. I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I felt like many of the unanswered questions I had in the first two books were answered (more or less) in this one. So that was good. But I tended to be a little more critical of the writing in this one. I don't think it was any worse than the previous two, but once you're into the third book, you do kind of get tired of reading the word "shuck" over and over.

As far as storyline, I was okay with the development & ultimate ending. As a young adult trilogy, it was satisfying with its action and adventure. As an adult reading this trilogy, the writing was not up to caliber when compared to other better-written young adult trilogies or series books. However, the overall storyline was unique enough to make this a fairly enjoyable series for me.

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Sigh. Honestly, just disappointing. So many unanswered questions. So many actions and plot twists that just didn't make sense. Characters that you don't really care about. A really great idea for a series, but the author was too obsessed with writing action scenes to even make sure that the plot

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fit together.

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The Death Cure is the final book in The Maze Runner series. Thomas, our main character, has been through so much in the first two books and now WICKED says that it's time to finally find the death cure. But Thomas doesn't trust them and I can't say that I blame him.

I spent the majority of this book

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in anticipation of finally knowing it all! Waiting, and waiting, and waiting. And while this book is about 97% action and 3% resolution, I was happy with it. Did it end the way I wanted it to? Not really, especially since I had SO MANY unanswered questions at the end, but I can see how some people would think that it was the "perfect" ending.

I will tell you that I was very impressed with the fact that there is no romance in this book (definitely hard to do these days in YA) and yet I still found myself enjoying it. My friend Anna has pointed out that there are hardly any cases of platonic relationships in YA these days. But it looks like a book can be good without the swooning afterall!

I'd recommend this book to lovers of action and if you're looking for holiday gift for a guy, this is a winner!

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*Sigh*

This was such a disappointment. It pains me to say that. It really, really does, because I loved the first two books, and thought that this series had huge potential. I was so excited to read this book, to find out what was going on... And then this? This is just... it?

So. Frustrating.

I

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just don't even know where to start. I thought that the concept of this series was fascinating. The mysteriousness, the everyone starts at One and figures it out as we go thing was great - I loved it, although I am sure many others didn't. The action, the confusion, the mistrust... all of that was great in the first two books, which had me chomping at the bit for the conclusion.

Well let me not keep you in suspense. It fell hard, like Wile E. Coyote right after he realizes he's been duped off a cliff... again. The resulting splat was flatter than a pancake.



The ONLY reason I'm giving this two stars and not an abysmal one star, is that it WAS still exciting to read, mostly, and I kept hoping against hope, as the remaining page count grew smaller and smaller, that there would be some redemption to this book, that the revelation at the end would knock me on my ass and leave me stunned and wondering just how I could not have seen it coming.

Alas, there was not and it did not.

This was just... fluff. Nothing but 325 pages of filler and then a f*ck*ng cop-out ending. This series should have been a slightly expanded duology. About 50 pages of this book should have been tacked onto The Scorch Trials along with a decent ending, and I'd have been thrilled. But this. Ugh. All I can say is I'm glad I didn't buy them.

The characters showed zero growth. Zero. And not only zero, but... negative. NEGATIVE GROWTH. OK, so... I'm going to assume that if you're reading this review, you've read at least through The Scorch Trials. So you know that Thomas, the main character, and his best friend Teresa, have 1) secrets about their past that tie into WICKED, meaning that they worked for WICKED and helped design the program and experiments, etc and 2) have had all of their memories of those secrets, their roles as mentioned above, and the rest of their pasts, wiped. They know their names, but other than that, they're basically operating on instinct and feelings. They've determined that WICKED has been experimenting on all of the Gladers in order to find a cure for a disease that is running rampant on Earth, turning people into raging, cannibalistic psychopaths.

So... No-Memory Thomas doesn't trust WICKED, and wants to get away from them and stop them from experimenting on people... 'Cause it's all mean and they lied and stuff. (Seriously, that's pretty much his reasoning.) Given the chance to get his memories back, to remember exactly what WICKED is, and what its goal is, HOW HE CAN STOP IT USING INSIDER INFORMATION THAT HE WOULD HAVE BECAUSE HE EFFING DESIGNED THE SH*T, he decides he doesn't want them back. "Nope. No thanks, I'm good," says he.

But OK. I can get the logic of not wanting people he mistrusted to muck around in his head anymore. OK. I can go with that. So... when a person he is willing to trust is given the OK to muck around in his head, he STILL DOESN'T WANT THE KNOWLEDGE OF HIS MEMORIES.

Are you f*ck*ng KIDDING ME? >_


I do not get the logic... and this is where this book started to abide by the laws of gravity, being no longer held up by the suspension of my disbelief. Oh, I disbelieved a LOT. Better believe it. If your whole goal is to figure out what's going on and stop it from happening to other people, and you're given a huge huge huge asset like the kind I just mentioned, you don't say, "Nah, I'm good. I'll just go it alone, in the dark, with a trail of breadcrumbs and a feeling." You take the f*ck*ng advantage and USE IT.

But then, my next question is, WHY is he so absolutely positive that WICKED isn't doing exactly what they say that they are doing? We do animal and human testing ALL THE TIME. If, theoretically, there was a virus or disease or whatever that affected peoples' minds, escalated in times of stress, I would WANT someone to try to find a way to stop it. Experimentation might be cruel, inhumane even, but if it helps in a big picture sense, is it not worth it? WICKED wasn't even able to complete a full round of experiments to see if they could do it.

F*ck*ng illogical. Call me cold-blooded, but this sh*t is just a cop-out. It was like Dashner ran out of people he was willing to kill off, so just pulled the plug.

Ugh. UGH. I'm getting more and more pissed off the longer I type, so I'll make the rest of this short and sweet.

This book was a disappointment, a massive logic fail, and had a weak, unsatisfying cop-out ending. One hopes that with a handful of monkeys, writing for about a week, the resulting manuscript would contain a better resolution.

Yeah. Screw it. I'm giving it one star. I'm just mad. Wanna fight about it?

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Oh dear goodness…where to begin?

So let me just put it out there…I didn't absolutely hate the book. It had a lot of good things going for it, and the overall plot had a decent amount of action that would make it worthwhile to make a movie out of. Oh wait…there is a movie of the series. The

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first one anyway. For a young adult (or young teenager, really), then this would be a fun romp through another post-apocolyptic world where teenagers are our saviors. Sounds about right.

Characters. Thomas could, quite literally, be the poster child for making bad decisions. I mean, really. Every chapter had him dealing with a situation that could have been avoided had he made a smart decision that any sane person would make. And it was made very clear that he was one of the few sane people left on planet Earth. Each chapter was like your typical monster-of-the-week tv show of the 1990s. One situation comes up quickly, and is resolved rather quickly as well, deus-ex-machina style. I really wanted these events to have a deeper connection to the overall plot mechanics, but I guess I was just hoping for too much.

I also had a really hard time believing many of the relationships that were developed over the course of the three books…otherwise known as about a month or two. And for Thomas to label these characters as his best friends just felt…a little too over-dramatic. But then I think…oh wait, they're teenagers, and a month can seem like a long time for friends to be made and to lose them just as quickly. Fine…I'll accept that.

In terms of characterization, it felt like there were just a few characters in a very large stadium with fake audience members sitting all around. Besides our main characters getting some screen time, and some of them popping up all of a sudden (so I'm supposed to remember who Sonya was, who only appeared near the end of the third book? Orly?). But other than them, the rest of the cast was practically non-existent. I really didn't know who they were, and their overall contribution to the story.

And so many unanswered questions. I think one of the biggest gripe that I have with the three books was the use of a lack of knowledge to power the plot along. What would have been more interesting is if Thomas got his memories back right from the beginning and we dealt with the repercussions of his actions. Instead…we're just as baffled running around Denver as Thomas is. So if the other characters got their memories back, would that be utilized at all in the book? Nope…they disappear, and their real only contribution (by them, I mean Teresa only) is letting us know how to dispatch the Grievers. That's only the tip of the iceberg.

This book had a lot of potential. I think a lot of it could have been improved upon by providing more background on the world that the characters lived in, more information about the sun flares and their relationship to the Flares; the purpose of Thomas and Teresa and, really, WICKED; why WICKED was good, and so much more. I know there's a fourth book that acts as a prequel, but why force your readers to read through all this just to have an answer book at the end (if it really is an answer book). The fun is in discovering as I read along and coming across new questions (of course leaving some cool ones for the end).

Good for lovers of young adult (teenager) fiction and post-apocolyptic world with cool technology.

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The final book of the trilogy and I was ready for it to end. Fighting off the Cranks was getting old and I felt the author could have focused more on developing the ending.

Since reading the first book, I always felt like I couldn't really tell if I liked this series or not until I'd reached its conclusion. The first book was, in a way, absurd. That someone would go to so much trouble to essentially torture and murder a bunch of boys... to what end? It was obvious

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that millions of dollars had gone into creating the maze and other structures. Would there be any realistic conclusion to this story, or did the author just come up with "hmmm... let's see what happens if we throw a bunch of boys into a deathly maze with killer cyborgs?"

So... I've now finished the trilogy. Yes, the author did, to a degree, bring it to a sensible conclusion. The reason they tortured these kids was to find a cure. But, on the other hand, it's not really that sensible. First, since this story supposedly takes place in our current world at some future time, when has emotion/physical trials ever been part of discovering why some people are immune to a disease? That doesn't really make sense based on my current understanding of medicine. Then... really, is it that necessary to spend so much money to create such an elaborate maze to test these people's emotional reactions? Really, it seems like there are much more cost-effective ways.

Then, you have the rest of the story. Much of it, I felt was not given. There were so many unanswered questions. (SPOILER ALERT!) At one point, early in the book, the majority of the maze crowd is given back their memory. Thomas, the star of our book, was not among that group. I know I was eager to learn what they now knew. But no, nothing was said at all. It's like it didn't even happen. I have so many questions about Theresa (why did she write "WICKED is good" on her arm? why did she keep flip-flopping between supporting and not supporting WICKED? what did she know or learn?). I have so many questions about Thomas (what did he do previous to the maze days? How did he work for WICKED?). I have so many questions about WICKED itself. (What made them think that torturing a bunch of kids would help them find a cure? why do they think they can still find a cure?) And of course, questions about the other characters (what is Brenda and Jorge's relationship? If he goes where she goes, why is she in love with Thomas? Or is he more of a father figure? What in the world?)

Then, there were problems in the story. Take the diseased people. If you knew that if you got the disease, you would eventually turn into a murdering, disgusting, man-eating zombie, what would you hope your friends would do for you? (Yeah, the answer is kill you.) OK, if you knew that this disease was taking over the world. The diseased would not only spread the disease, but also potentially kill you, with no hope for recovery, what would the world decide to do with those who got the disease? (Yeah, they'd probably kill them, or maybe sedate them or lock them up, very early in the disease process. What an ingenious way to control the spread of disease! (And, of course, everybody kills zombies in zombie movies and books, even if they were once human.) So, no, this world doesn't option for killing the zombies. They prefer to just "set them loose" in the wild, letting them die terrible, miserable, murderous, disease-spreading deaths. Oh joy. How illogical.

Finally, there's the whole little love triangle. So in this book, you can be on Team Brenda or Team Teresa. Personally, I always liked Teresa. Dashner didn't even give poor Teresa a chance. He tied things up with a pretty bow by killing Teresa so Thomas wouldn't have to choose.

So... I finished the book ultimately disappointed. Yes, it was an enjoyable read and the action was strong throughout, but as a story (and the story is king in my book), it left much to be desired.

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This was the best out of all three novels! Fast paced and witty! I feel like all of my questions from the last three novels were answered. Great way to end a fascinating tale!

A slightly disappointing but mostly okay conclusion to the Maze Runner trilogy. I'm glad I followed through with reading this, but I'm not sure I actually liked the series as a whole. Too much action and not enough plot to make me read any of Dashner's other books.

The book was good, but it was not the finale that this series deserved. Action packed yes, but the ending was way to fast, and civilization ended?! Come on...

Oh. My. GOD! This book is amazing. No, this entire trilogy is amazing.

The Death Cure by James Dashner picks up a few weeks after the end of the second book, The Scorch Trials and it is just one adventure after another. Super fast paced with zero down time, as I read this I couldn't help but feel

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like I was running along side Thomas, Minho and Newt the entire time.

Thomas and the boys escape the clutches of WICKED with the help of Brenda and Jorge only to find themselves thrown full fledged into the real world of Cranks. Through the entire book Thomas is having a hard time figuring out who he can trust. Is WICKED actually good? Should he go back and help them discover a cure to the Flare? Who should he believe? Brenda or Teresa?!

What I absolutely loved was the inability to guess the ending of this book. Since the entire series had so many plot twists, I couldn't even guess what was going to happen next. I don't want to give too much away because you just have to read this book for yourself!

If you like action, adventure, suspense, thrills and..bromance? (lol) then you will LOVE this entire trilogy.

GO READ IT!

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It was a great book, but it lacked the mystery about the outside world that was so great in the first two books.

I've been looking forward to The Death Cure since I finished The Scorch Trials last year. I have a love/hate relationship with series books like this. I love the added depth and intrigue they bring…I hate it when I'm reading a series that's still being written because then I have to wait for the

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author to release the next book. :)

This is the third and final book in The Maze Runner series (although a prequel has just been announced). I suppose you could jump in mid-stream but I certainly wouldn't recommend it. There's just too much backstory from the first too books, plus you don't want to deprive yourself of those great adventures.

I'm really a sucker for the new trend in dystopian novels. I have a lot of fun with a hero trying to do all he/she can to not only make the best of a bad situation but to somehow overcome the hopeless and pitiful state of the world.

In this book we are taken to a dramatic conclusion as Thomas and his friends from the Glade try to make sense of the world around them and somehow continue the fight not only for survival but for a future worth living. I loved the line written on the cover: "The time for lies is over." Both of the first two books were filled with so much deceit and confusion that throughout this entire book I still found myself questioning what to believe. Even as events unfolded, I wasn't entirely sure what was real and what might still be a subterfuge.

This book and series pose a lot of questions through the plot and the characters. What is truth? What is good? Can the ends justify the means in any situation? Even in WICKED situations? Who can you trust? Can you trust yourself? I loved the way these questions were explored in depth but never answered definitively…rather, the reader is left to ponder on them and to come to an individual judgment call.

I found the ending of a book a little bit contrived and just slightly disappointing. While I can agree that the ending works, I think I was hoping for just a bit more. Especially after all of the buildup. I think part of the reason this ending may have fallen flat is that I have recently finished up another series that had an ending that was strikingly similar in the way things played out. Don't get me wrong…I'm not crying "foul" (and certainly not implying plagiarism). I honestly think the ending is fine…but I personally wanted more. Though as I think on it, with all of the many problems to unravel in this book, I would be hard pressed to come up with an ending that works as well as this one does…let alone to propose something that might work better.

In the end, I really enjoyed this series and was sad to see it end. I was super excited to hear that a prequel is in the works…not only because it allows me to re-enter Dashner's world but also because by being a prequel it will allow for more focus on those hard questions and provide more insight into how and why decisions were made.

As far as recommendations, I really enjoyed this book and can recommend the series. I will warn readers that the series grows more dark and violent with each book. So if you read the first one and find that some of the concepts are too intense for you, I would suggest you brace yourself before diving into books 2 and 3. But if you enjoy dystopia and/or a good thrilling adventure with a lot of twists and turns, then give this a try.

****
4 out of 5 stars

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I don't know how many of you stuck it through like I did to reach the end of the Maze Runner trilogy. To be honest, Maze Runner was not my absolute favorite of the genre, but it was intriguing and raised enough questions that I wanted to continue the journey. The second book, I didn't like very

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much but the third held the promise of answering some questions. To my shock, Thomas decides not to get his memory back?! What the Pho?!?! So none of my questions were answered and the ending was completely dissatisfying. I was completely disappointed and cannot recommend this trilogy to anyone because it's not worth the ride.

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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

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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.

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Just as fun as the first two but not as clever as I would have liked. I wanted more surprises and also more insight into Thomas and Theresa's pasts. I also thought a certain character didn't get the ending they deserved. Their death seemed convenient to the plot and they didn't get treated very

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well in the book before that point either. We never learned much more about their side of things. Plus things with WICKED were wrapped up too neatly and without many answers. I still really enjoyed this book and the series as a whole and will continue to recommend.

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Left a lot of unanswered questions. I wish the author would have gone into more depth about some of the characters that started as main characters and then just kind of fizzled out. I was disappointed in the ending, it just didn't feel right.

Sometimes I am dissappointed with the ending of a series, but this time I was not. This is the third book in the Maze Runner Trilogy. The book was action packed with lots of twists and interesting and unexpected plot developments. We get to see more of the humanity of the characters in this book

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and that Thomas and his friends are, despite all they have been through, just kids who have been manipulated by a bizarre system. Is WICKED good? You will have to read the book to find out.

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Honestly, I was a bit disappointed in the ending of the story because there were many unanswered questions. It did not reach my expectations. However, when compared to other trilogies I've read, The Death Cure is way better than some.

This was a very satisfying end to a thrilling series. I couldn't help but compare this trilogy to The Hunger Games trilogy and I have to say that I prefer this series hands down.

Solar flares have caused a genetic alteration of a virus that attacks the brain and causes hallucinations and eventual

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insanity. Precious few people have immunity and a group known as WICKED is trying to study teens to see what in their brain prevents the virus from taking over in order to save humanity. Unfortunately, these people are also suffering from the disease and don't know when enough is enough. Thomas is the focus of their investigation and they lie and deceive him until he is unsure what is the truth.

The third book was an absolute thrill ride from page one until the final chapter. Thomas and his friends have to cut through the lies to try and learn who they can trust.

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