the kill order

the kill order
the maze runner #0/4
james dashner
ya/thriller/dystopian
delacorte press
published 2012

Before WICKED was formed, before the Glade was built, before Thomas entered the Maze, sun flares hit the earth and mankind fell to disease.  Mark and Trina were there when it happened, and they survived.  But surviving the sun flares was easy compared to what came next.

Now a disease of rage and lunacy races across the eastern United States, and there's something suspicious about its origin.  Worse yet, it's mutating, and all evidence suggests that it will bring humanity to its knees.

Mark and Trina are convinced there's a way to save those left living from descending into madness.  And they're determined to find it - if they can stay alive.  Because in this new, devastated world, every life has a price.  And to some, you're worth more dead than alive.

About halfway through I realized I was done with this book, but I read all the way through.  I wasn't hoping it would get better, I just had to finish it.  The Maze Runner was really good.  Really, really good and I would say that I wished it was a stand alone novel, but it did leave you on a cliffhanger and the story was a lot more than could be summed up in just one book I suppose.  But it wasn't until The Scorch Trials that I realized Dashner's writing wasn't that fantastic.  By the time I got to The Death Cure I really didn't like anyone anymore.

But The Kill Order was a prequel and I thought I would want to know how it all began.  What I didn't think about was how depressing it would be.  I mean, we already know things don't end up going so great for those who were around when the flares began.  So the whole time I wasn't wondering if Trina and Mark and their friends would die, I was wondering when.

So the first half was okay, but then the writing started to fall apart.  Conversations he added just to fill in the time were stilted and strange.  People don't talk like that, especially not people in dire situations.  By the end of the book I was tempted just to skip ahead and see how it ended.  Pages upon pages of fighting crazed people.  Punching, kicking, scratching...twice we had to read about Mark almost falling out of THE SAME WINDOW.  Well, maybe not the same one, but still.

It just wasn't good.  I wish I had stopped reading after The Maze Runner.