REVIEW: The Death Cure by James Dashner

The Death Cure

TITLE: The Death Cure

AUTHOR: James Dashner

GENRE: YA, Dystopian, Post-Apocalyptic,

SERIES: Book #3 of the Maze Runner Trilogy

WHERE I GOT IT: Borrowed from the library

READ FROM: March 03 to 05, 2013

note: I try my hardest to give a spoiler free reviews but sometimes when talking about a book it is hard to keep it that way. When that is the case I like to warn readers that my review will give things away. This review might have some things that could spoil parts of the story for you. So read with caution.

BLURB: They cracked the secret of the maze and crossed the scorch. Now WICKED has one more task for them and that is to finish the blueprint for the cure. Just one thing, Thomas knows that he can't trust them to tell the truth.

WHAT I HATED: I was SO disappointed with this book. I loved the first one and thought the second one was okay but I had really high hopes for this one. I was totally disappointed. I started skimming parts near the end because I just wanted it to be done!

I felt that parts of the book really seemed to drag. This was probably due to the fact that once they made it to their next destination something happened that stalled them for awhile. Then once they finally started moving to the next point they were stalled again. I just wanted them to get to the end point so I could get some answers. It's almost like in a suspense movie. The person is running away and getting so close to the safe spot, that your sitting on the edge of your seat biting your nails hoping they make it but knowing there is the possibility that the won't. .

I was really hoping that Thomas would get his memory back. As bad as it sounds I was practically cheering when WICKED was going to force him to go through with the procedure because I wanted some concrete answers. On the other hand I can understand why Thomas wouldn't want to remember anything but since he was one of the most mysterious characters I felt like he should have anyways. But once it seemed like that wasn't going to happen I expected maybe learning something from Teresa but she was barely even in the book! 

CHARACTERS: I feel that Teresa and Thomas had so much potential to make the story really interesting considering we get snippets of how they were involved with WICKED from a young age, how they could communicate mentally with each other and how they had a big part in the development of the maze. I really wish that Dashner would have chosen to let us in on a bit more. The whole thing is shrouded in so much mystery that we are left to make up our own minds and to be honest I really don't like that. There is just to much left unanswered for my liking.

While I was interested in Teresa, I really hated Brenda. The only point I saw for her being there was to make Thomas continually debate about who he should be with. It got annoying after awhile. Sometimes love triangles can be interesting, this one definitely was not. Plus was she a WICKED spawn or was she really on Thomas's side and in love with him? It doesn't seem like it could be both since Wicked really doesn't seem to be “good”?

ANOTHER THING I HATED:  I also was so disappointed with the letter Newt gave Thomas to read at the right “moment”. I was willing Thomas to read that note at least a half a dozen times and when he finally did I had to reread to make sure I read it right. I was thinking it was going to be something profound, something moving, something that made me think. Instead it was 'if your my friend, kill me when I get past the gone”. WHAT!?!?! Why couldn't he have just pulled Thomas aside to ask him that and make him promise then? I mean come on Newt! You can't tell him he will “know” when the time to read it is and when he doesn't, get all mad at him because he let you down! Seriously. If it was that important to you that he kill you right after you go crazy you should have taken him aside and made sure he understood! Not leave it up to a letter you wrote! I get maybe that would have been a hard conversation but still at least he would have known your wishes. Considering the world that they are living in there are a million possibilities why Thomas wouldn't read the note at the 'right time'! I felt sooo cheated that there was all this suspense leading up to reading that note and that was all we got.

PLOT: I really did believe that WICKED was close to a cure. I really, really, really did. Even though the explanation on how they were going to reach that really didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. So I was hopeful when Thomas went back.

Then rat man said this: “Thomas we need your brain” I knew at that point (and was slightly disappointed because the story was totally going in a direction I didn't expect) that rat man, and quite possible all of WICKED were all way past the gone and had been for a really long time. UGH!

Then Teresa DIES! WHAT? But to be honest, while it shocked me I found I really didn't care. She was barely in the books anyways so I was not attached to her at all. I was sort of appalled that Thomas basically was like 'meh that sucks.' 

WHAT I LIKED: I actually found that their style of swearing/slang humorous for some reason. “Those Cranks are way past the Gone.” I have a feeling I might be saying 'what the clunk' a lot or thinking people are being real 'slintheads' for awhile.

THE ENDING: While there was an ending of sorts, I was left with so many more questions. Like what was the extent of Thomas and Teresa's part in building the trials? Why were they able to communicate telepathically to each other? How did they learn that? Why can't everyone do that? Who is Chancellor Paige? Why didn't we learn about her sooner? How did they think this research was going to help them find a cure? Why did they find everything so necessary? Why didn't WICKED hire more munies to oversee their research? How did WICKED think it was going to solve the flare infection? Why didn't WICKED send immunes to this magical start over place before they discovered failure!? Was WICKED really good? Sigh, I could go on.

FINAL THOUGHTS: I have to give Dashner a high five for being very creative in this trilogy. He did create an interesting world, even if he left us with a million more questions then we started with. I guess I will have to use my imagination as to what happened to the ones that were sent to start over, even though I don't want to. I just really wish that I wasn't given such a free rein to come up with my own conclusions. I may have ranted a lot with this book but it really did make me think a lot about the story.

FINAL THOUGHTS ON THE TRILOGY: As a whole I really loved this series, I think maybe to go on as far as to say, one of my favourites even though I didn't like book 2 and 3 nearly as much as the 1^st one.   I'm actually pretty excited to see that the first one is being made into a movie. Should be interesting to see when it comes out. 

My final thoughts on the trilogy is this: is WICKED really good? I can't really decide. I think their quest to find a cure was a good thing but I think they way they went about it was bad. Who knows maybe they were already starting to go past the Gone when they decided the trials were the only way to go. I guess we will never know. Your thoughts?

RATING: 3 out of 5 stars