72 days of summer

This book was so disappointing. I don't even know where to start. I love The Maze Runner, and I really loved the first and the second books - they're even some of my favourites - but this ending was possibly worse than the ending of the 'Divergent' series, which I didn't particularly like either. Don't get me wrong - I didn't hate the book if I just looked at the book as a stand-alone, but when having read the two other books that came before it's just a big disappointment.

So, why do I think this book was so horrible?

1) The deaths were poorly written

Okay, Newt. Once I realized he was probably gonna die (STILL NOT OKAY), I expected to be

But surprisingly I wasn't. The writing was flat. I was sad, but that was all. It was like as soon as he died Thomas was all 'well, no point in thinking about that now, I have imports stuff to do', and while that is understandable, seeing as he DID have some important shit to attend it left ME with the same feeling. I felt that I, as the reader, didn't have time to think about Newt, because the story moved on so quickly.

THAT being said Newt's death wasn't nearly as poorly written as Teresa's! Boom, oh, a piece of rock fell on Teresa. And Thomas doesn't seem to care all that much? He just mentions that 'Teresa was one of his best friends!', and then he runs off and makes out with Brenda. Not that I'm mad about BrendaxThomas or that I particularly shipped Tomresa, it just felt very rushed and barely-scratching-the-surface-ish.

2) The writing was nothing extraordinary

Okay, so of course we can't all write like Shakespeare, and it's not always necessary. It might not even do much for the story. But with The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trials the writing was so alive and interesting, it got your blood pumping and made you invested in the story. But with The Death Cure it really wasn't that spectacular at all. It wasn't only the deaths that were rushed, flat and barely-scratching-the-surface-ish.

That was my general feeling throughout the whole book. There were few places where I really thought 'wow, this is good writing', which I for example thought with the very first line of the first book “He began his new life standing up, surrounded by cold darkness and stale dusty air”. That's the kind of writing that just leaves me thinking 'wow, that really hit, that was really well-written'.

3) ALL OF THE QUESTIONS

I cannot stress this enough. Throughout the series we're left with so many questions, but we think that that's okay because they will get answered eventually. But they do not

Do not misunderstand me, a writer has the right to keep some of his/hers secrets, but as John Green has said "I believe that there is a contract between reader and writer", and I personally think a part of that contract is answering at least some of the most important questions. Why even arise the questions if you're not gonna answer them? Of course we might get those answers in the prequel The Kill Order, but I really feel like Thomas should have gotten some of the questions answered. Like, why was Teresa named Teresa Agnes? Why was she not named after a scientist? Why did they decide to have a group of girls and a group of boys with one of the opposite gender in each group? What about a mixed group - that would be essential for getting real, reliable results, if they're going to gender-divide. Why teenagers? Why only teenagers? What was up with the Gladers having their own swearwords - where did that come from? Was it part of the experiment, and if so, why? Why were Thomas and Teresa so special that they were asked (or forced) to help building the maze? Who was the Chancellor Paige? How did no one think about making a place where only Immunes lived and then let them breed so all of their descendants were immune as well - if the immunity was inheritable of course? And I have many more.

4) Lack of depth in the writing

I don't need to elaborate on this. It's just an addition to my point about the book being less-than-extraordinarily written. It was just very flat and rushed throughout the whole book.

6) Character depth (or lack thereof)

At the end of the book I didn't really feel like I knew many of the characters. Brenda, Teresa, basically everyone besides Minho, Thomas and Newt really lacked depth in my opinion. Maybe that was a part of why I had a hard time giving a klunk when something bad happened to those who were not the core trio. Again the writing was very flat.

All in all I love this series and I love James Dashner's writing and I still gave the book 3 out of 5 stars. I've been very negative, but I don't actually think the book was all that bad, but compared to the other two and with the anticipation of the ending being grand it was just one big flop. It really was worse than the other two, and you can certainly count me both disappointed and angry. That doesn't mean I won't watch the movies, support the fandom and read the books again and again. At the end of the book I was left feeling more or less