Book Review: The Death Cure

Book: The Death Cure (The Maze Runner book #3) by James Dashner

Cover Art by Philip Straub
Typography by Joel Tippie

Edition: Paperback

Description:

It’s the end of the line.

WICKED has taken everything from Thomas: his life, his memories, and now his only friends—the Gladers. But it’s finally over. The trials are complete, after one final test.

Will anyone survive?

What WICKED doesn’t know is that Thomas remembers far more than they think. And it’s enough to prove that he can’t believe a word of what they say.

The truth will be terrifying.

Thomas beat the Maze. He survived the Scorch. He’ll risk anything to save his friends. But the truth might be what ends it all.

The time for lies is over.





Rating: 4 1/2 stars

Review:

Is There a Cure? That's the question at the center of this story. I found The Death Cure to be an exciting, dark and complex ending to The Maze Runner series which addressed a lot of issues along with trying to survive in a changing world. In this conclusion, Thomas, his friends and the rest of the Gladers continue to be in the clutches of WICKED (World In Catastrophe: Killzone Experiment Department). Despite going through The Scorch Trials, it seems WICKED will stop at nothing to continue more trials in hopes of finding a cure especially if Assistant Director Janson has anything to say about it.

A surprising opportunity allowed Thomas, Newt, Minho, Brenda and Jorge to escape from WICKED. The group made their way out to Denver, however, being out in the world again brought with it another set of problems. Despite safety measure put into place to ensure the city was safe from the Flare, it became rather clear how difficult it is to safeguard the city from the virus that's raging throughout the world. And once someone has the Flare, they eventually start turning into Cranks or zombies. Danger was lurking throughout the city which included people who were immune to the virus going missing and it had the Gladers on alert. The Gladers were not expecting to be reacquainted with an old friend from the Glade who was now connected with the Right Arm, a fringe group who had a plan to stop WICKED. The Right Arm thought WICKED was wasting time and resources trying to find a cure instead of helping people especially with so many suffering.

The city was quickly becoming unsafe, Cranks were overtaking the streets and the Gladers in a surprising move decided to join up with the Right Arm. Unfortunately, it would require Thomas going back to the one place he didn't want to go, WICKED. This was a good story, death and humanity feels like the underlying theme of the story with the Cranks as something in between. Although the Cracks are monsters, the real monster in this series is WICKED, I feel like the organization may have began with good intentions but along the way those in charge became so desperate for a cure that they were willing to do whatever they deemed necessary for humanity to survive.

As much as I enjoyed reading The Death Cure, I can't help thinking the movie had the better and more concise story. The book at times felt like the author was trying to incorporate too many things into the story while the movie narrowed the focus to give a clearing story. I really like both stories but it's that rare instance where the movie turned out to be better than the book.