The Scorch Trials by James Dashner

I don’t know how I feel about this book.  I’m completely torn between liking it and being so bored I kind of just wanted to skip to the last few chapters just so I could stop falling asleep and dropping it on my face every time I picked it up.  I found it difficult to focus on, especially in the middle of the book where not too much happened except for them walking across this massive desert area.  It just felt like the author could have done a lot more with this book than he did, and it lacked depth and feeling.  It felt like it was just written to pacify readers until the next book came out.

Okay, The Scorch Trials was a nice followup to The Maze Runner.  It has taken me forever to read these books, so yes, I’m behind.  It did take me a while to get through The Maze Runner, and I’ll admit, an equally long time to get through this one, and truth be told, I don’t really know why.  The writing was interesting, although a bit slow.

With the introduction of new characters, it was a little more difficult to keep track of what was going on.  Some favorites, such as Thomas, Minho, Newt, and Teresa have returned, although things are pretty much confusing as ever, to be honest.  All those questions that I had at the end of book one?  Yeah, most of them still haven’t really been answered, and now I have even more.  It seems like this book was kind of just a filler between The Maze Runner and The Death Cure.  It seems to have fallen into that problem that occurs with trilogies – the first book and the last book tend to be great, while the middle book is kind of just “meh” in comparison.  The whole book just kind of feels like nothing substantial really happens, which is a bummer, because I looked forward to reading this one more than the first book.

I’m pretty sure that if you absolutely loved The Maze Runner, then you’ll find yourself enjoying this quite a bit, but if The Maze Runner was a little difficult for you to get through, don’t expect too much from this one.

I’ll probably be reading The Death Cure next, but I don’t have too high of expectations for it, like I did with this one.

Have you read The Scorch Trials?  What were your thoughts on it, especially after reading the first book?