Independent Reading Assignment: The Maze Runner

The book that I have chosen to read and study for my Independent Reading Assignment is The Maze Runner, by James Dashner, which consists of about 369 pages. I have chosen to read this book mainly because I have watched the corresponding film and highly enjoyed it. Also, the blurb and colourful cover took my eye and I have also received many recommendations about it. This book is also a part of a series, which consequently made me more intrigued to read it.
The main expectation that I have for this book is that it will relate in some way to the movie, although as book are generally better than the movie, I hope that this is the same for this book. I also hope that the book is interesting throughout, and doesn’t slowdown in the middle, similar

to other books. The final expectation that I have for this book is that it doesn’t finish in a predictable and cliché ending.
The Maze Runner is set in a post-apocalyptic dystopian future. The book is mainly set in the “Glade”, similar in size to “several football fields.” The Glade is surrounded by “four”, “enormous” “grey stone”, ivy covered walls. The walls are describe as being “hundreds of feet high.” The floor of the courtyard was made from “huge stone blocks”, many “cracked” and covered in long “grasses and weeds.” A rundown “wooden” building was surrounded by “trees”, with their roots similar to “gnarled hands” digging into the floor. There are also gardens, homing corn, tomatoes and fruit trees and “wooden pens”, holding sheep, pigs and cows. The blue, “cloudless” sky made the weather “perfect”, it “never rained”, “never snowed” and never got “too hot or too cold.” The air smelt of “freshly turned dirt”, manure and pine, similar to the smells of a “farm.” The setting is described as being a “paradise”, if it wasn’t for the situation the characters were in.
There are many characters such as Thomas, Newt, Chuck, Gally and Teresa. Thomas, the protagonist, is sixteen years old and brave, loyal, clever and friendly. He is one of the last characters to arrive at the Glade and quickly makes friends and enemies with the other boys. He is describe has having “brown hair” and being around “five foot nine.”
Another main character is Newt. Newt is described as being a “tall”, “muscular” boy, who has long blonde hair. He becomes the leader, after the death of another character and sarcastic and direct. He becomes best friends with Thomas early on, and acts as a father figure to the younger boys in the Glade.
Chuck is another character, who is described as being around twelve or thirteen years in age. He is a “chubby boy, who is assigned as Thomas’s guide and is depicted as awkward and one of the youngest characters. He is also talkative, innocent and generally naïve.
Gally is depicted as the antagonist, and is an arrogant, “dark-harried” fifteen or sixteen year old. When Thomas first arrives, Gally bullies him, and slowly loses many of his friends. He is not popular among the other boys, and as the story goes on he becomes increasingly more aggressive towards the other boys.
The last main character, is a teenage girl called Teresa. She is the first female to arrive at the Glade, and initially is protective and introverted, although as the book goes on she becomes more confident. She is described as being “thin” and “roughly five and a half feet.” She has “burning blue eyes”, “tar black hair” and skin as pale “as pearls.”