THE DEATH CURE by James Dashner

From Goodreads:
Thomas knows that Wicked can't be trusted, but they say the time for lies is over, that they've collected all they can from the Trials and now must rely on the Gladers, with full memories restored, to help them with their ultimate mission. It's up to the Gladers to complete the blueprint for the cure to the Flare with a final voluntary test. What Wicked doesn't know is that something's happened that no Trial or Variable could have foreseen. Thomas has remembered far more than they think. And he knows that he can't believe a word of what Wicked says. The time for lies is over. But the truth is more dangerous than Thomas could ever imagine.Will anyone survive the Death Cure?






* CONTAINS SPOILERS *


I quite enjoyed the end to this trilogy, and thought it took some very interesting, and somewhat unexpected, twists. There was certainly more depth to the characters in this novel, and it was definitely more emotional.


While I thought the idea of the ending was good, I did feel let down that we never really found anything out. I was disappointed that Thomas did not ever get his pre-Glade memories back, I would have liked to know what his role in WICKED really was, and more about his relationship with Theresa. And, I found the "last goodbye" with Theresa to be too short and left too much unresolved.


I also thought that the whole Right Arm section should have been more in-depth. There was a lot of really great opportunity there that wasn't explored at all. And what about the Chancellor? She seemed to be an important character, and yet she had - literally - no dialogue in the book. Why did Thomas never get to meet her? How did Brenda know her? How did she orchestrate it all?


In fact, I think this book could have been 100 pages or so longer, if everything had been fully explained and explored.

I do think that it was a good idea for there to be somewhat of an uplifting ending (although I did find that it went too quickly from the final battle to the very end), since SO MANY characters died. I thought the cyclic nature of the storyline in this one was interesting. I also enjoyed the re-emergence of some of the "lost" characters (I'm looking at you, Gally), and the friction between Jensen and Thomas was very well done. And the progression of Newt's character was excellent, he hadn't really been one of my favourite characters until this book.


All in all, I did enjoy it, but was left a bit "wanting" for more. My rating: 3 1/2 out of 5