Said to be the "last Maze Runner book forever", The Kill Order provides us with answers...and (in my opinion) with more questions.
The Kill Order by James Dashner
Before Thomas was born or WICKED was even an idea, the world was at peace with each other and with nature. Until the sun flares struck. Mark and Trina were living in New York City, a hub of people and technology alike. But all of that changed. Forever. A switch was flipped, and things were never going back to what they were before. They finally got to a settlement in the Appalachian Mountains with their friends and tried to get their new life to seem normal, but that didn't last for very long. Since they were some of the few that survived the sun flares, who was to say that they couldn't survive anything? But they didn't know what was coming next.
When I read this book, I was ready to get all the background information on the sun flares, the origin of the Flare, the formation of WICKED, and some details on where all of the immune came from. Two out of those four were satisfied. I really liked how Dashner chose to reveal the way that the Flare was released and how he described the sun flares. In all of the other Maze Runner books, I didn't exactly get a good mental picture of the sun flares. I mean, ball of fire falling from the sky was pretty much as far as I got. But, this gave me an idea of what he was going for. When it came to the third question, there was one character that ended up being immune, but they don't give us any details as to how she passed down this trait, or how others discovered that they were the same way. It was kind of cliff-hanger-like in this aspect of the book. Also, during the book, I was looking for characters that could be part of the future WICKED organization. There was no closure on that either.
However, the biggest disconnect I had was the epilogue. Yay! Thomas and his mom! Ok, how does that tie in with the rest of the story? It is something that we kinda knew already. Thomas mentioned seeing his mother in his dreams in The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trials, so you had to assume that he was taken away from her by WICKED at some point. There weren't any clues as to who this woman might be except the "Two Years Later" at the top of the page. When I saw that, I ruled out all of the important characters in the book. So, where is the bridge between those two parts? As soon as I got home today, I did some research on Goodreads, in a thread about the ending of this book. There were so many out-of-this-world explanations. I actually saw one that said, "The Barnes and Noble copy had an extra chapter at the end, which told you more of what happened in the end." Not that I don't believe them, but that seems like a pretty stupid thing to do.
Besides all of that, I really did enjoy the book. It was written beautifully and the plot was extremely engaging.
If you have any answers at to the end of this book, they will be greatly appreciated! But please make sure to notify readers if there are spoilers in your comment!
Age Group: 13+
Concerns: Minor Violence
Rating: 9
