The Maze Runner

Reading The Maze Runner, by James Dashner, is a bit like reading a version of Kafka's The Trial adapted for a younger audience. There's an ordeal and the main character doesn't know why he has to go through it. No one answers any questions. You never really find out the purpose. The entire reading experience consists of sympathizing with the main character and being unable to understand why anything happens to him.

I kept reading, thinking surely something would happen, that something would be revealed. But no. The main character, Thomas, spends his time "living in a giant maze, surrounded by hideous beasts" where "sadness filled him like a heavy poison. Alby's screams, now distant but still audible, only made it worse." The reason for Alby's screams is never fully revealed. There are hints and allegations; if you like conspiracy theory perhaps you would enjoy the ending, in which the characters believe they've been removed from the world in which scientists are toying with them, but they really haven't been.

I spent the entire time I was reading this YA novel just like the main character: "Frustrated, he put it aside and sprinted to catch up." But there's never anything important to catch up to; it's frustrating that every turn of the plot leads to just another dead end in the maze.