Rating: 2 of 5
Dystopia-light. Best suited for middle graders or teens under 14 with little to no previous exposure to the genre. I suspect it was written to attract the attention of film and/or TV studios.
Meh. The beginning chapters wasted too much time on the unknown, asking the same questions repeatedly, giving nothing. Thomas was sickeningly good. (The best heroes are always flawed; apparently, not that sixteen year old boy.) The other characters – all male – were interchangeable and forgettable. The obligatory female, Teresa, was thrown into the mix but with no real effect. She mainly served as a way to introduce [spoiler]the telepathic link between Thomas and herself[/spoiler], which was not as cool as it could have been. The middle pages were filled with fluff, plot holes, more questions, convenient answers, and fake suspense. When a big shock was delivered [spoiler]the Doors not closing[/spoiler] I wasn’t the least bit worried for any of the Gladers. How could I be? [spoiler]The Grievers weren’t scary.[/spoiler] As for the climax and the epilogue, well, both were underwhelming and predictable. The whole story was better suited for film than literature and, like I already stated, I believe that was the author’s intent.
See for yourself: read an excerpt on the book’s official website.
No interest in reading the sequels or prequel.
(Review cross-posted on LibraryThing and Goodreads.)