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.

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