Before The Maze Runner movie comes out, I figured that I should finish up the trilogy and read The Death Cure (see my reviews of The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trials). As you can see, I wasn't too big a fan of book 2 which is why it took me so long to get to book 3. However a colleague at work picked it up and reminded me that I really should finish this series. I won't give a plot summary here because it would be spoilers for anyone that hasn't read the first two books. Suffice to say, it's fewer games and trials and more "real world".
I had much the same problem with this book that I had with book two. These kids are put in so many awful situations and in the first two books I had hoped so much for their survival but became so used to everything going to shit that I stopped hoping because it was pointless. There is absolutely no positive situation for these Gladers. I'm not sure I've ever read a book before where I've just given up on hoping for the best. But in this case, why bother wasting energy. Everything goes wrong and everyone almost dies. Yes, it happens again.
By the end of this book, I had more questions than I had answers. Why did Theresa flip-flop in her decisions? Who the heck was Chancellor Paige? Was Brenda just another variable to get them to their final destination? In terms of wrapping up the series, the ending was a bit weak but not entirely unsatisfying. Though I wasn't surprise as the series went downhill from the first book.
Rating:
(3/5)
Rachel comes home from work to find a note in her kitchen from 14 year-old daughter Marley: don't try to find me. Rachel dropped Marley off at school in the morning but no one has seen her since. She calls her husband, Paul, and the two start making calls including the police. With a history of high anxiety, Rachel doesn't handle this too well and the cops suspect she may have something to do with Marley missing. Paul decides to go to social media and start a massive online campaign to find Marley. Told from the perspective of both Rachel and Marley, we get both sides of the story.
Connie Burns is a foreign correspondent that has worked in war zones and high stress situations. After tracking some unusual rape and murders in Sierra Leone, Connie thinks she knows who is responsible but can't do much about it. Years later, she finds herself in Iraq, looking at the same man from Sierra Leone that she thinks caused these crimes. He knows that Connie is on to her and doesn't hide his anger. She is kidnapped and released 3 days after the kidnapping but refuses to say anything about the kidnapping.
When Charlie Bone discovers accidentally that he can hear people in photographs speak, his dad's side of the family takes over. They give him tests and poke and prod him to determine if this is a legitimate gift and whether he should be sent to special school. Charlie tries to deny it but can't because the pictures are so loud. He is sent to Bloor's Academy, away from his best friend and his mom. He learns about secrets that he shouldn't and meets others like him: both nice and mean. With cats that can set fire to things and a box that is trying to open itself, Charlie isn't at school long before he gets wrapped up in a variety of different schemes.
I received this book from Goodreads as a giveaway.
Kathryn is woken in the middle of the night to a knock on the door and her worst nightmare. Her husband Jack is a pilot for an airline jointly owned in the USA and England and his plane has just gone down. They don't believe there are any survivors. Robert from the pilot's union is there to guide Kathryn through the grief and answer the phones for her. Katheryn knows she needs to break the news to her teenage daughter Mattie and knows how much it will hurt her.
Myron Bolitar is an ex-pro basketball player, ex-FBI agent, and now a sports agent. His partner Win is the muscle and money behind the operation. Bolitar signs Christian Steele, and up and coming quarterback, and is trying to get him the best deal he can when Steele gets an anonymous letter in the mail with a magazine containing the picture of his girlfriend who had disappeared a few years ago. Bolitar doesn't want this to affect his client, so he starts to investigate but he has some history with the disappearance as well. Bolifar was dating her sister. Though you wouldn't expect a sports agent to make a good investigator, Bolitar is able to figure things out and start piecing together the puzzle.
The Lazarus Project is in the Arctic trying to find hard ice and the sea creatures within it to reanimate them and bring them back to life. They're hoping to find larger creatures rather than the small shrimp and sardines they've been working with but they never dreamed they would find a human. This story comes from the perspective of three people: Dr. Kate Philo, a top scientist in charge of the expedition, Daniel Dixon, the journalist along for the ride, Erastus Carthage, the egotist responsible for The Lazarus Project, and Judge Jeremiah Rice, the frozen man.
Hannah is visiting her grandparents during Passover in 1988 America, wishing that she could be like her best friend Rosemary and eat candies at this time of year. Instead, she's tired of remembering the past and listening to her family talk about their experiences during the war. While performing one of the rituals of Passover, Hannah opens the front door and is transported back in time to 1942. She is called Chaya, which is her name in native tongue. She is now part of a new family, her parents supposedly died from sickness. Her uncle is getting married the next day and as the wedding makes its procession to the church, Nazis are in front of the church. The tell everyone that Jews are being relocated and to follow them. They aren't given a choice. The whole village is crowded in to a train and taken to Auschwitz.
Jillian Lauren grew up an adopted child in a New Jersey Jewish family with a dad who had a horrible temper to the point of physical abuse and a mom who did nothing about it. Lauren left her house still a teenager and started dancing at clubs, eventually joining an escort services. She was interviewed for a position within the harem of Prince Jefri Bolkiah, brother to the Sultan of Brunei. Lauren accepts the job and flies over to Brunei with a couple of other American girls and becomes part of the craziness in the Prince's world. There are parties with many other girls from all over the world that last until the wee hours of the morning. The Prince takes one girl each night to have sex and some times during the day girls could get called. They usually get jewellery for their troubles. These girls get paid handsomely for their troubles before they are sent on their way back home.
It's 2044 and the world is a mess. Oil prices are so high no one can afford to run cars, world politics are in shambles, and all citizens are using an online utopia OASIS like a drug to escape. When the creator of OASIS dies, his will is broadcast to every user and he tells all that there are three keys hidden in the online world that those worthy can find. Once the finder has all three keys and passes three gates, they will receive the creator's inheritance, which is in the multi-billions of dollars. Not surprisingly, many people set off to try and hunt these easter eggs, including one Wade Watts, a teenage boy who lives in the stacks with his aunt. There's also a large corporation hunting the eggs and everyone knows that if they find them, they will take over OASIS and change it forever. This hunt isn't as easy as it seems though, with many different worlds to work through, it's hard to pin point where exactly these eggs could be. Over five years go by until Wade, avatar Parzival, finds one. Then the hunt is really on.