The Maze Runner: Film Review

The first film in The Maze Runner franchise was released in England today, and, as can be expected, I was first in line for a ticket!
I read The Maze Runner series of books, including the prequel, earlier this year, and while I enjoyed the first two books, I must say, I was let down slightly by the others. I gave the first book 4 stars on Goodreads, and although it took me a little while to get into it, I did really enjoy it.
I went into the film without too many expectations; I wasn't quite sure what to expect, as the trailer seemed to portray the film in a different way to what I had imagined. Nevertheless, I had high hopes that it would be a good film.
Overall, the film definitely lived up to the high standard I had expected. In fact, I enjoyed it more than I had expected to. I did notice that there were a lot of major changes from the book to the film, so it wasn't an amazing adaptation, but if you weren't comparing the two, it was a great film!
The film is about a group of boys who, one at a time, find themselves being sent to an unknown place they have nicknamed 'The Glade', which is surrounded by huge walls that open every morning, revealing a huge maze. The boys' memories have been completely wiped, leaving them only knowing their first name. When Thomas arrives in the maze, everything begins to change. Soon, a girl, the first girl, is sent carrying a message, which, simply put, equates to- Get out, or die...
To watch The Maze Runner trailer, click here.

The next part of the review will contain major spoilers for The Maze Runner and possibly the rest of the series. If you don't want to view this, please don't read on!

*****

As I have already said, many things were changed from the book to the film. These are a few of the changes...
1. For the majority of the book, Theresa is in a coma, and The Gladers have a hard time coping with her situation. In the film, Theresa is in a coma to begin with, but wakes up after only a day or two. But, I can see why they did this, as it would cut the film time down a little.
2. Thomas and Theresa don't have telepathic powers, like they do in the book. While Theresa is in a coma, she tries to communicate with Thomas using the telepathic powers they both have. This isn't touched on in the film, though I guess this might have been hard to portray well with quite a small budget.
3. Grievers. I was really surprised to see the Grievers (monsters from the maze) on the screen. When I read the book, I imagined them as walrus-shaped creatures with pincers and spikes, as opposed to the film's spidery-robotic looking scuttling things! However, they weren't described in a huge amount of detail, so the film company can get away with this.
4. In the book, The Gladers discover how to get out of the maze by finding a code in the maps when laying them down on top of each other. In the film, they work it out by finding a number pattern from the maze and use this to unlock a passage out of the maze. The book's version of the code is more clever and intricate, but I think the way the film has done it also works well, and is easier for viewers to understand.
 5. Gally dies at the end?!?! In the book, after Chuck steps in front of Gally's knife aimed at Thomas, Gally is knocked unconscious by Thomas, but isn't dead, and features as an important character in later books. However, in the film, Minho stabs Gally after he shoots Chuck, and we see him dead at the end. My first thought was that he was actually unconscious, rather than dead, but he doesn't appear to be on the cast list on the sequel, on IMDb, so I'm interested in seeing how they pull the other films off without him.

This was just an adaptation though, so we can't expect it to be a complete copy of the book.
Overall, I was really impressed by the film, and the acting was great (from Dylan O'Brien and Thomas Brodie-Sangster especially!!)

I think The Maze Runner deserves 4 out of 5 for the film. As for an age-rating, I think it would be suitable for age 12 and above, depending on the maturity of the person. There is little bad-language, but there are some quite violent scenes and some of the suspense scenes even had me on the edge of my seat!!

I'm really looking forward to the film coming out on DVD, so I can watch it again!

That's it for the moment! Goodbye!!
Charlotte xx

Hush, Hush: Series Review

A couple of days ago, I finished Finale, which is the last book in the Hush, Hush series, by Becca Fitzpatrick. I really enjoyed this series, actually more than I had expected to, and I am going to do a review of the series now.

Hush, Hush's narrator is Nora Grey, an average, American school-girl, who was never interested in romance or having a boyfriend. Until, that is, she met Patch. Then everything changed. Everything Nora had thought she that knew was different. And despite her brain telling her to stay away from the mysterious Patch, she couldn't help being drawn to him anyway. Then, there was no going back...

Warning- From this point on, there WILL be Spoilers for ALL of the books in the Hush, Hush Series, so if you haven't read these books and do not want to be spoilt, please, please don't read on!

*****

To be perfectly honest, I thought the first two books in the series were pretty mediocre. I mean, they weren't terrible, but neither were they amazing. The first book is all about Nora being introduced to the new world, and Crescendo, the second book, sees Nora and Patch break up. These kind of plots are fairly common in the YA genre, and tend to occur in a lot of series. At this point in the story, while I was entertained by the novels, they came nowhere near to my favourite books, and I wasn't loving them.
It wasn't until the third book that I really started to love the series. I thought that the situation in this book was amazing, and I can't remember reading anything like this before. The book starts with Nora waking up in a graveyard, having no idea how she got there. She soon discovers that she has been missing for a few months and was kidnapped, but the only problem is, she can't remember a thing. But, not only can Nora not remember what happened to her during her kidnapping, she also can't remember about the world of Fallen Angels and Nephilim, which also meant that she couldn't remember about Patch!
It really helped that this happened in a later book in the series, because it left the readers knowing more than the narrator of the story did, which made reading it quite frustrating, but in a good way! I did, however, think that Becca Fitzpatrick rushed Silence a little bit, and I think she could have made more of a point of Nora's memory loss and the effects of it. But, overall, I thought Silence was really good!
I thought that Finale, the last book in the series, really wrapped things up nicely. While some bits were quite predictable, in my opinion, it worked well. I had never expected to be crying at all in this series, so when tears were streaming down my cheeks by the end, I was quite surprised! I'm still in denial about what happened to Scott, and to be honest, I found his death pretty unnecessary. I thought that Becca Fitzpatrick just killed him off because she felt that someone needed to go. But other than that, I thought the ending was good, and the last lines really made me giggle!!

So, overall, I thought the series was good. I would like to say they were excellent, but I thought that the writing was quite sloppy, and the scenes jumped around a little too much. In some parts, I found it difficult to understand quite what was going on, though this may have had something to do with me reading it far too late into the night! But, I thought the idea of the series was really good, and I enjoyed reading about the characters. 
I would recommend it to anyone who likes fantasy and paranormal books, but who maybe hasn't read a great deal of books in that genre, as it could be viewed as a bit predictable. 


To see what I think of other books, click here and take a peek at my Goodreads page!

That's all for now! Bye!
Charlotte xx

Welcome Message

Hello, and welcome to my blog!

My name is Charlotte and, if you haven't already guessed by the title, I completely adore books! Since the age of five or six, I have found myself utterly absorbed in books, and throughout my years, I have developed quite a collection of them! 

My list of favourite books is far too long to write down, but the books at the very top of the list include the Harry Potter Series, by J K Rowling, The Hunger Games Trilogy, by Suzanne Collins, and any book by John Green! I love most of the books in the YA genre, along with Fantasy, Sci-fi, Contemporary and the odd Historical Fiction book. 

My reason for creating this blog is so that I can share my thoughts on books with like-minded individuals (who hopefully won't think I'm crazy!), write book-reviews, and maybe even get a few recommendations!

Anyway, I'd better be off to do some reading!

Until the next post... Goodbye!!

Charlotte xx