Plot & Characters
The Protagonists in the book, Thomas, Theresa, Newt, Minho, Frypan and other survivors from the maze arrive in a dormitory after being rescued by strange military men. It's quite a strange place, everything is furnished with beds and such, and of course, there's food! But the windows are blocked with bars and there's some crazy people outside trying to get inside to kill them. Also, they seem to be unable to leave but at least they're safe. Well, until one night Theresa suddenly disappears and they hear weird noises outside their room and found their rescuers hanging around, dead. Not only that, but a guy comes out of nowhere sitting behind a invisible glass case telling them that it's not over yet. There's another trial, called the Scorch Trial and they have to do it or get executed when you don't leave. It's going swell for them isn't? Well as you can see it's not, I don't really wanna give any spoilers here. Have fun reading it! or not.
Themes & Symbols
The whole book has a theme of pushing through one's struggle, not giving up, trust, and relying on your friends in your time of need. The characters being teens who are struggling through these trials are kind of like us. These "Trials", you could say are what we face in our lives, these trials you can call the obstacles that we face. Throughout our lives we face these obstacles/trials, some can be hard and will strike without warning like the desert thunderstorm in chapter 24. You can also see the cranks as those dark creeping temptations we face some times in our lives. We always try to avoid those temptations, hide from them, escape from them. When we get bit or just scratched by these temptations, you will just slowly get consumed by it. Even if we don't get bit by them, we always have these dark thoughts hidden at the back at our minds, that sometimes will slowly corrupt us, just like the flare. During our times of need we always have hope, I feel like the cure in the book signifies hope.
Just like us, the protagonists in the book face trials/struggles. Geez, I got pretty deep here, I probably overthinked it though. To conclude my Theme & Symbols part, I will say what I think the theme of the book is! The book gives us some life lessons, for example, we can persevere through our struggles and we can come out cured of our troubles. Or you could say that, there's always a reward for our hard work, especially for them (the protagonists). That is pretty much it, thank you for reading my thoughts about the the theme of the book.
Just like us, the protagonists in the book face trials/struggles. Geez, I got pretty deep here, I probably overthinked it though. To conclude my Theme & Symbols part, I will say what I think the theme of the book is! The book gives us some life lessons, for example, we can persevere through our struggles and we can come out cured of our troubles. Or you could say that, there's always a reward for our hard work, especially for them (the protagonists). That is pretty much it, thank you for reading my thoughts about the the theme of the book.