The Scortch Trials
The Scortch Trials
Delacorte, 2010
Fantasy
ISBN: 0385738765
368 pages
Synopsis
Solving the Maze was supposed to be the end. No more puzzles. No more variables. And no more running. Thomas was sure that escape meant he and the Gladers would get their lives back. But no one really knew what sort of life they were going back to. In the Maze, life was easy. They had food, and shelter, and safety . . . until Teresa triggered the end. In the world outside the Maze, however, the end was triggered long ago.
Burned by sun flares and baked by a new, brutal climate, the earth is a wasteland. Government has disintegrated—and with it, order—and now Cranks, people covered in festering wounds and driven to murderous insanity by the infectious disease known as the Flare, roam the crumbling cities hunting for their next victim . . . and meal.
The Gladers are far from finished with running. Instead of freedom, they find themselves faced with another trial. They must cross the Scorch, the most burned-out section of the world, and arrive at a safe haven in two weeks. And WICKED has made sure to adjust the variables and stack the odds against them.
Thomas can only wonder—does he hold the secret of freedom somewhere in his mind? Or will he forever be at the mercy of WICKED?
Critique
Certainly not as good or as groundbreaking as the first, The Scortch Trials was still an interesting story that kept me intrigued enough to continue reading. It’s hard to follow up a book like The Maze Runner, because, much like Lord of the Flies, it would probably work better as a standalone novel. Everyone’s got the series craze though, nowadays, so it’s hard to escape with just one. There were certainly a few plot twists along the way, but nothing like what The Maze Runner could offer, since the premise of that book was entirely based around discovery. Still, I would recommend it as a good read.
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For the Classroom
Although this isn’t directly applicable to any specific studies within a classroom setting, it’s a book that I recommend to all late middle school and high school students. If there’s a point where you are studying dystopian literature, this is a great example and something that the average teen reader may enjoy more than 1984.
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