WICKED is good. ~ Week 17

This month, my book club decided to delve into a little Young Adult fiction. As you can imagine, I was thrilled! The Maze Runner centers around Thomas, a teenager who awakens to find himself inside a grassy expanse known as the Glade. He seems to have no memories of who he is and why he's there. The Glade is filled with teenage boys, all of whom have been mysteriously transported there as well. As if things weren't sounding bad enough, Thomas discovers that the Glade is surrounded by a maze filled with treacherous obstacles and seemingly without a solution.

A cross between Lord of the Flies and a Stephen King novel, you will find yourself intrigued by The Maze Runner by the time you finish the first page.

The good: This book keeps you guessing. I found myself just itching to know what was going on. I love a book with a good conspiracy theory too. This one made me think of LOST - mystery upon mystery - layered with a thick plot. The author was very imaginative with his characters and "creatures."

The bad: I had a hard time getting into the Gladers slang. One word they used was "shuck." Basically it was a replacement word for any profanity that the boys felt like spewing. For example, "Shut up shuckface!" I thought it was kind of ridiculous because while it was better than saying the real thing... it was pretty obvious what the author was trying to get across.

Another slight problem I had was that I felt like the story was crawling along. There was mystery build upon mystery and I was aching for some resolution. Finally, in the last couple of chapters an enormous lot of information was thrown at me. I was able to answer some of those questions I had rolling around in my head, but I felt like it was all piled into too

Also, why do YA authors feel like they need to make EVERY book they write into a trilogy? What ever happened to wrapping it up in one novel? I guess I can answer this myself because I am that weirdo that counts the days until the next book in a series comes out (Read: HUNGER GAMES #3!)

The verdict: Why is YA fiction so damn addicting? Maybe we all wish that our high school/adolescent years had been that interesting? Also, ladies, it doesn't matter how old we get - we still want to remember what it feels like to fall in love for the first time. That's why these coming-of-age stories are so attractive to us. They appeal to the girl in us.