A series of chaotic incidents rather than a strong conclusion. A disappointing end to a promising series.
What it’s about:
They’ve escaped the Maze and made it across the Scorch. Now will the survivors get their memories back and help WICKED save mankind from a lethal pandemic?
If you’d like some more background, read my reviews of The Maze Runner (Book 1) and The Scorch Trials (Book 2).
My take:
This is the weakest book of the series. In the first two installments, the trials provided solid structures/settings and clear plot lines (1: the Maze and getting out of it; 2: the Scorch and getting across it). But in The Death Cure the characters lurch from one episode and location to the next, getting into trouble just to have something to do. I made a similar criticism of Allegiant (Divergent #3) and The Death Cure has similar “end of series” issues. However, I’m not sure you’d notice this so much if you read the series with a big gap between the books. It was clear to me because I read the books back-to-back. If you’ve taken a break between installments this issue may not be as noticeable.
Thankfully, we do get some answers. But after all the suffering the characters have gone through and all the intrigue, I felt underwhelmed by the revelations.
Finally, the events of the last chapter felt incredibly rushed. A key character is killed off in a few sentences. Then we get two pages which are meant to wrap everything up, but instead left me thinking, “THAT’S IT?!”
My recommendation would be, if you’re reading or have read books 1 and 2 and want to finish the series, borrow The Death Cure from a friend or the library. That way, if you’re disappointed, at least you’re not out of pocket.
I hope the movie is better. Do you happen to know when it comes out?
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The Scorch Trials movie (based on book 2) is out in the middle of September. The Death Cure movie is currently slated for February 2017. From the trailer of The Scorch Trials, it looks like they’ve taken elements of Book 3 and put them on the front of Book 2… all a bit of a jumble!
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I liked the first movie, so I’m hoping the second will be just as good or better
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Ah! I am currently reading this book, and I’ve heard some pretty negative things about it. I hope it’s still worth the while! I’m a new blogger and I recently wrote a post about YA realistic fiction books, and it would be awesome if you’d check it out; I think you’d like some of them!
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It’s not terrible. I think I’d have just liked something more “Wow!” at the ending. I’ll go an check out your post now! 🙂
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It’s too bad this ended up being a disappointment for you! 😦 It sucks when the end of a trilogy or series is disappointing, since we’re looking forward to this big finale and everything, yet it never shows. Great review though! It was interesting to see a different opinion on this book (I liked it). 🙂
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It was such a shame. I’d been looking forward to finally finding out what was going on, and then when I did it was less “WOW” than “Oh, right. I see.” 😦
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