Book Review: The Death Cure

The Death Cure by James Dashner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was real close to giving this to giving this book 4 stars, and I'd probably give it a 3.5 if I had the option. But did I "really like it"? No. Did I "like" it? Yes.

It starts off promising. Having not read the second book in the series for many years (maybe three or four to be exact), it took me a moment to get reacquainted with everything happening in the story. Fortunately, some clues here and there reminded me of what happened in the first and second book.

The entire first act was fun and mysterious as Thomas tries to discover why WICKED has him and [SPOILER: it details he and his friends escape from their facility :END SPOILER].

As we go into the second act, some things happen. Some interesting but not nearly as much as before. [SPOILER: Thomas stumbles into some new people who want to take down WICKED and his best buddy Newt suffers some tough stuff that eventually leads to his death. :END SPOILER]

OK. Still in the "really like it" category, even if the writing at times is somewhat repetitive and moments between characters stiff.

The third act comes along and something lost me. [SPOILER: The whole take down and destruction of WICKED, Theresa dying suddenly (who frankly I had trouble understanding her purpose in the entire story), the portal to some area of earth unaffected by the Flare where the Munies live in what is described as a paradise (why couldn't they just be there in the first place instead of putting immune people through death defying odds to find a cure?(in fact why all the death sequences to find a cure)), the forcing of everyone back in the Maze from the first book for one last look before it's blown to kingdom come. :END SPOILER] It felt like the end of the book was edited to keep it to a certain length. It left much to be desired.

But again, I liked it. I'll read the next two books that were released after it. Not every book or story has to be a masterpiece. It needs to be fun to read. And The Death Cure was definitely fun.

View all my reviews

Comments

Designing a Book Cover - The Fourth Layer

In my last post, I spoke about "The Third Layer" in my process of designing book covers. That was adding the author name. I also likened layers one through three to being a cake. It's baked. The layers are stacked. And it's edible. But in order to entice someone to eat the cake, the final decorations—icing, color, flowers, etc.—need to be added. So what can I do with my current book cover to spruce it up? The Fourth Layer of course! This is the crucial and final layer. This is where everything comes together to form the complete book cover. The steps I use below are my own. You'll need to determine what is needed for your cover when you get to this layer. Only you know your book. Only you know what's important. The Fourth Layer is where you can get creative. First, I want to continue with the older adventure book type feel. With The Legend of Kyd Lumin , I want people to think it's a book not published in 2021 but rather, published sometime in the 80'

"You Have 22 Minutes" - A Kindle Vella Story

You Have 22 Minutes I awake in darkness. Confused. How did I get here? Who am I? Of these things, I'm uncertain. A voice calls out to me, counting down to what I can only deduce is an inevitable conclusion. It says, "You have twenty-two minutes until the next displacement shift." Episode Titles Episode 1 - ...Until the Next Displacement Shift (free) Episode 2 - ...To Enjoy an Awkward Hot Shower (free) Episode 3 - ...To Avoid Becoming a Tasty Morsel (free) Episode 4 - ...To Prove Yourself a Capable Mommy (35 tokens) Episode 5 - ... Until You Unwittingly Become a Self-Traitor (38 tokens) Episode 6 - ...To Travel Through Ducts to Escape Your Abductors (37 tokens) Episode 7 - ...Until All Your Mistakes Make You a Failure (30 tokens) - Available 7/27/2021 Episode 8 - ...To Successfully Do It All Over Again (35 tokens) - Available 8/3/2021 Episode 9 - ...To Be the Creator of Your Origin Story (27 tokens) - Available 8/10/2021 More to come! Available exclusiv

Designing a Book Cover - The Third Layer

In my last post, I spoke about "The Second Layer" of designing a book cover, which is making sure you title stands out well. Now we head to "The Third Layer". This one probably will seem obvious and it complements "The Second Layer" . It is your author name. It's important that your author name be positioned and sized correctly. There are a few approaches to this. For well known authors—for instance Stephen King or James Patterson—having the author name prominent and big on the cover is good. The reason is, their names are so popular that the author name sells the book more so than the book title sells it. As a self-published author you could use this thought process for your cover to give the impression that you are a popular author. Of course, your mileage will vary with this approach. The other option is to not allow the author name to dominate the content. So you would want it to be smaller than the title. You could even make it barely noticeable

The Time Capsule

Search This Blog