The Maze Runner is a disappointment. It’s full of filler, wasted ideas, and terrible plotting. There’s exactly one girl and her purpose is to be a plot device.

The story opens with a character who doesn’t remember things thrown into the impossible world of a giant maze and surrounded by other amnesiacs. Then chapter upon chapter upon chapter is spent not exploring that world but characters saying unfamiliar words, the main character asking what it is, and being told to shut up and don’t ask questions. Half the words are just invented slang so the characters can swear without there being any official swearwords in the book.

A lot of the characters are cranky assholes, which is one plausible outcome for a community solely of teenagers. But that never actually goes anywhere – the initial chapters are full of people being snappy and threatening over nothing, and as soon as the maze runners come into the picture, all the other rules fly out the window. We learn they take rules so seriously that when someone under the influence of a known illness that makes you go temporarily crazy attacks someone, they banish him to die behind the wall…and after that the rules are wrist-slaps. There isn’t even any point to the entire sequence beyond making everything seem more sinister and threatening than it turns out to be. There’s another rule that only exists so he can dramatically break it and then everyone argues over how he’s so cool he shouldn’t be punished.

There’s also a dramatic timelimit on treatment for the crazy illness about needing treatment before nightfall, even though nightfall away from the group is always full of things that kill you anyway, but only the main character can figure out that actually it’s the other certain fatalities that have been getting them and there’s no real timelimit. One character is set up as a dangerous bully, disappears halfway through the book, reappears to spout prophesy rather than let them figure stuff out, reappears again as an unnecessary addition in the ending.

Actually, the spouting prophesy rather than letting them figure stuff out is about half the book. They figure out exactly one thing by actual reasoning. It’s incredibly frustrating. The main character is dropped into this cool setting, no one will tell him about it or even let him look too long at anything, then the whole setting goes pear shaped and all the other people freak out about how NOTHING LIKE THIS HAS EVER HAPPENED every chapter or so, but of course he’s never experienced anything else and usually needs it explained how shocking it is. Considering there’s massive chapters of filler from the endless STOP ASKING QUESTIONS chatter, it’s not like there’s no room for there to be breather chapters.

He’s only been there a day before another person arrives, which NOTHING LIKE THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED. The person is a girl which NOTHING LIKE THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED. She is unconscious when they open the box which NOTHING LIKE THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED. Then she says everything will be changed, which NOTHING LIKE THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED. Then she goes back into a coma which NOTHING LIKE THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED. And she spends the time mumbling important facts which nothing like etc.

She is the worst character. She exists solely to be a girl occasionally spouting important info at the main character. If the author thought a girl appearing when everyone before had been a boy was such a clever idea, she could’ve been the main character. (Is there some interview somewhere about how it just had to be a boy because girls get too many main characters in YA so what about the men?) Oh, also she’s telepathic with the main character. Telepathy is still science, right? Right? Guess what important plot stuff the telepathy is used for. NOPE! Nothing. Fucking nothing. But somehow the fact they’re telepathic is how they helped make the maze everyone else is in.

I was excited about the whole maze business, but it turns out they’ve actually mapped the whole thing even despite the shifts. They repeat in a pattern. For some reason the idea that there is not an exit and they should try digging or something instead hasn’t come up. Also, they can’t climb the walls. Because. Even though they’re covered in climbable vines, and even though the main character pulls himself and someone unconscious up thirty feet at one point.

We’re told these kids are supposed to be super smart and clever and this is all a problem solving test, but they seem extraordinarily bad at outside the box thinking. It’s treated sort of like a videogame, where they’re sure there’s a set way out and they need to solve the puzzle put before them. The main character even compliments how they “haven’t given up” and kept banging their heads against the maze, rather than trying anything productive. You know, they have cows, and he has this whole bit about no riding animals to make the maze running business easier. You can ride cows, dumbass.

The ultimate reveal is a string of nonsense. They’re apparently in there to be tested and the best ones will pass. The creators decide it’s time to end the whole maze thing and push the kids to escape, which they do by turning the sun off and murdering one kid a night. The kids eventually figure out what they need to do by the two telepaths remembering it, so after a lot of one deaths a night (I should point out at this point that the monsters come with a disabling shot and the murders are utterly unneeded), they make a run for the way out and another half of them are killed in the process. Then they’re complimented for doing so well half the group survived, and one of them is murdered for drama. It’s the tagalong kid, as it generally is. This is all because solar flares have caused an incurable disease and the kids in the maze (who are not sick) will solve it, although why they can’t just use their maze building technology to build safehouses for people and call it a day is unclear. Anyway, right then rebels come in to save them but actually it’s staged so the kids will trust the second group. Despite the fact their plan revolves around pointless murder, we end the book assured that they are good, really, trust us. Oh, also their group name is Wicked because the author thought it was clever.

The only good thing I can say about this book is that everything is foreshadowed properly and doesn’t come out of left field. It’s just what is there is stupid.