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| from goodreads |
I really love goodreads.com. I love the fact that I can see what my friends are reading. I love that I can keep track of books I want to read, even though every time I go on I seem to add a billion! I love their reading challenge. I love being able to see what others think of books and with the ratings it helps to gauge whether the book is worth the time to read or not.
Yet, that rating system can be a bit of a bad thing, especially when it comes to YA books. It seems that most of the people who rate YA books either a) rate it before the book is even out. Like seriously? The book hasn't been published but people are all ready giving it a 5 star rating because of their anticipation??? Crazibus! or b) are so super enthusiastic about it that I believe they give an inflated rating. It seems with YA readers (of a certain age, that age being young) that there is no grey area when it comes to a series. Either they love it full tilt to the end or they don't, and most of them love it! And you know what, there is nothing wrong with readers being super excited about a series or about reading in general. It's great! I just wished they didn't saturate the ratings so I could get a more realistic view of a book. Oh well.
***spoiler alert*** while I will do my very best not to have spoilers I may inadvertantly give something away. If you have not read this series yet and don't want anything revealed you may want to wait to read this review.
Synopsis
Thomas wakes up in a dark elevator. He doesn't remember anything. Thus starts this sci-fi ride within a maze and then beyond.
My Thoughts
I read this series because of the hype, especially the added hype around the movies. I especially wanted to see what my teenage niece was so excited about.
While the idea behind the series is really cool and thought provoking, I found myself being utterly bored while reading the books. While I guess there were some exciting bits in them they were surrounded by boring dialogue and characters that I really didn't care for at all. Perhaps if I were more of a brooding teenager I would have appreciated the teen attitude and recklessness. Alas, I am a 32 year old mother and I found the macho vibrato so ridiculous.
In the first book I was definitely disliking the not answering of questions. Thomas just arrived there obviously needing some answers to where the heck he was and all he got was "you don't need to know right now" or "we'll tell you later", yet later never seemed to happen and when would he need to know? And then the people got mad when he explored or tested some boundary he shouldn't have. It's like hello!? maybe answer his questions and then he would not have done that!
I did like the slang that the gladers made up. It definitely helped this rowdy bunch of boys not swear, otherwise swearing would have been littered throughout this series, and I really detest swearing for swearing sake in books.
In the second and third book I did not like Thomas' anger towards Teresa. I felt that the intensity of the anger was really not warranted. It was also weird in the last books how close he was to his two friends from the glade considering he only knew them for like a week or so. How did he become all chummy and leadery with them. Wouldn't of these other people have other friends in the group? It was just weird.
This series I think would be good for teens that usually don't feel like reading. There is not a bunch of flowery mumbo jumbo in it and there are some cool fight scenes. But, if you are looking for a completed, relatively well thought out and understandable world (sort of like the one created in the Hunger Games) you aren't going to find it. There were too many holes and things happening that I just didn't get. I guess I had too many questions that weren't answered.
So all in all, this was a series that just wasn't for me. I only read the second and third book because I held hope it would get better and I wanted to see how the writer was actually going to wrap it all up. (I was satisfied with the ending though I know many weren't). While the concept was good, the execution, for me, was not excellent.
The author does have some other series that look interesting. I may give them a try, but I think I need to wait before I do.
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