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

I bought this on Saturday in the late afternoon and, even though I had a ton of grading to do, read it by 8pm that night. I just could not put it down because I really wanted to know how it would end.

I was not disappointed.

Setting: Most of the book happens in Denver where Cranks are taking over. The rest of the setting is the medical/admin building where they start and end the story. It was also very awesome to for James to bring the trilogy full circle by bringing people back to the Glade and the Reavers even.

The Denver setting was very interesting, especially the progress shown into decay and violence.

Plot: This part of the trilogy is about whether Thomas can trust what WICKED is saying and what they really want. There is also the love triangle subplot and Thomas’ struggle with who he is and his past.

This was a very dark book, and there are some sad and dark moments throughout. Luckily, the entire plot ends with a ray of sunshine and hope to take us out of there (perhaps a bit too easily, but not much).

Conflict: Um, yeah, there is a lot of conflict. The book has pretty much non-stop action the entire way through. I didn’t need to exercise when I read this because my heart was beating pretty fast the entire time. 😉

My only disappointment was how the love triangle conflict was resolved. I wanted something more – but then, this is a YA and not an adult novel. It felt too much like Mockingjay on how it was handled, for me.

However, all the other conflict and juicy tidbits about why WICKED was doing this and why the telepathy worked and why this disease happened in the first place and who the Rat Man is and how they really needed to save the world . . . those were all answered – and then some.

Characters: Warning! Several people die or are killed in this story. And it is very sad. But, like I said, this is a dark book and anything less would have felt too PollyAnna. Some people may not like Thomas’ decision about his memories and the past, but I felt like it was true to his character. And some might not like how he mourns or doesn’t for some people, but I thought they were foreshadowed well and I think there are reasons for that too. I’m going to miss learning more about all those characters, but I’m sure James has more awesome stories up his sleeve.

Text: Not much to say here. It was well written and edited. I’m sure there were mistakes, but I flew through this so fast that I didn’t notice.

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