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Genre - young adult dystopian science fiction

Setting - The majority of this book takes place in an area called "The Scorch." They entered The Scorch via a Flat Trans. The Scorch's land is completely flat, no sign of life or vegetation anywhere, it's so hot, and the sun is absolutely deadly.  It's just a desert, with one big city in the middle of it. The city is abandoned with smashed windows, rubble, and dead people here and there. It is filled with "Cranks" or in other words, the crazy people infected with "The Flare" a disease that took over the world. The Scorch also has very extreme weather conditions. It doesn't rain much, but when it does, it storms. The lightning from the storms is extremely powerful and destroys buildings, and killed one of the Gladers. Beyond the city in the Scorch is a random  mountain range.
This setting is important because the whole book is about how the Gladers were put on this mission to make it across The Scorch in two weeks time to recieve a cure for "The Flare" for which they had all been infected with.

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Thomas is the main character in this series. He is smart, brave, and compassionate. When he had to stab a man, it took an emotional toll on him even though it was self defense. Despite Minho being designated the leader of the Gladers, there are signs posted all around the Scorch calling Thomas the "real leader." Thomas has a complicated love-life, he tries to comprehend his feelings for Teresa as well as his feelings for Brenda. Thomas tries his best to keep himself and the Gladers out of trouble by using his words, even if that means reliving his past. Thomas is well-liked and does his best to survive.

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We meet Brenda in the Scorch. She and many other people were labeled as Cranks, have caught the Flare, and were sent to live in the city. Having the Flare means she is slowly going crazy. Brenda is Jorge's best friend, and despite being a Crank she is extremely intelligent. She is also described as beautiful with brown hair. Brenda very openly flirts with Thomas, even after she knows about Teresa. She is tough, and helps Thomas through the city when they are separated from his friends.

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Minho is one of Thomas's best friends besides Teresa and Newt. The tattoo WICKED placed on his neck designates him as the lead of the Gladers through the Scorch. At first we aren't sure how this is going to go, but he proves himself to be effective in this authority position. However, he does still have a tendency to act or think before he speaks which gets him into trouble. Minho is loyal, we know this because he saved Thomas and Brenda, and he was consistently checking on Newt when fighting the monsters to make sure his bad leg didn't get the best of him. Minho makes himself out to be tough and funny, but on the inside we know he's got feelings somewhere.

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We meet Aris in Teresa's room at the dormitories. He was the only boy in Group B, much like Teresa was the only girl with the Gladers. He watched his best friend get killed just like Thomas and this helps the two of them bond. Aris was super sweet and innocent, and the Gladers accept him. Aris was also quiet, only speaking when he thought it was important. Turns out Aris was with Teresa an Thomas before the maze and could also speak with them telepathically.

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Teresa is Thomas's best friend from the maze. She is beautiful, and intelligent, strong, and rational. Teresa gets put into Group B at the beginning of the book, and works her way up in their group. When we meet her again, she almost appears to be one of their leaders. Teresa cares for Thomas. So much so that she is willing to betray Thomas just to keep him alive. Because of this, her and Thomas's relationship will never be the same and trust is lost between them.

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The Gladers have escaped the maze and their rescuers loaded them onto a bus and took them to a safe building. Right away they separated Teresa from the rest of the group since she's a girl, so she got her own room. Everybody goes to sleep peacefully and life is fine. The next morning strange things begin happening immediately. They wake up to see a bunch of mentally insane people smashing their windows, gnawing on the metal bars, and just going absolutely bonkers outside of their room. Minho goes to find their rescuers but a door is locked. Thomas comes and breaks open the door and they are walking around in a dark room. Once they get the lights turned on, they see their rescuers hanging dead from the ceiling. The Gladers all agree it's time for a meeting, so they go to find Teresa. When they open the door to Teresa's room, they are surprised to see that it is not Teresa standing there, but a new character named Aris. At first Thomas and the Gladers are furious with Aris wondering what he did to Teresa. Turns out Aris is completely innocent, he has no idea who Teresa is and turns out Aris is from another group called "Group B" and they went through maze trials almost exactly the same as the other Gladers. But Aris was the only male in a group of all girls, and the Gladers are a group of all boys. This is when the Gladers started noticing tattoos on the back of their necks, each said something different. On Minho's neck it said "Minho, Group A, The Leader" This caused another surge of confusion as people were reading eachother's tattoos. On Thomas's neck it said, "Thomas, Group A, To be killed by group B." They talk for a while trying to understand this situation but they fail and ultimately just decide to go to bed. Before Thomas drifted off to sleep he tried calling out to Teresa in his mind like they did in the maze. It wasn't working, he wasn't hearing from her.  When he got out of bed he went into the common area where he encountered an event so unusual and unexpected. Thomas and the Gladers are in the common area where an invisible wall is separating them from a man in a labcoat at a desk that they call Rat man. After 45 minutes of waiting, Rat man stands up from his desk and explains to the Gladers how they are a part of an experiment and they are about to enter Phase 2. Rat man explains how tomorrow morning at 6 o clock they will have five minutes to enter through a Flat Trans into the world. They will then have 2 weeks to make it directly north 100 miles to a safe haven. If they don’t make it, they will die. After his speech Rat Man and his desk disappear and the Gladers are all left extremely confused. The Gladers are confused and ranting about the morning they will have tomorrow. Thomas, Newt, and Minho have a conversation where they appoint Minho as the leader, since that’s what his tattoo says. The Gladers go to sleep and wake up the next morning at the ripe time of 5 am. By 6 they are all in front of the Flat Trans and one by one they step through, Minho going first and Thomas going last. After going through nobody could see anything but darkness, after feeling around it seemed as if they were in a long hallway. They had no choice but to travel down it. A whispering voice told them to go back, but they pressed on. Then some kid started thrashing and screaming, but when Thomas tackled the kid all he felt was cold metal. They are continuing to walk down this dark hallway in complete confusion about the metal ball situation. However, they continue to press on down the hallway because what other choice do they have. Along the way a couple more Gladers are “sliced” by who knows what. Eventually they reach a staircase. At the top of the staircase is the exit from the hallway. They open the door and sunlight pierces through the area. All of a sudden a ball of molten metal comes and attacks Winston. The guys save him, but Winston is terribly burnt. This must’ve been what was happening to the others in the hallway, but now they see it and have so many questions. They go outside into the light and scorching heat. They realize they are in the middle of the desert. They see a small town up ahead and begin their journey towards it. Thomas just re encountered Teresa in a dark room, she told Thomas to leave and run for his life. So that’s what he did. Thomas and the Gladers continued their journey through the hot and awful desert and then took a rest. When they woke up it was cloudy, windy, and a storm was on it’s way so they had to make it to a city. When they were almost there they encountered this old man lying the ground who told them few things, but he said “storm coming, brings out, stay away, bad people.” Confused by this the Gladers continued to press on towards the city. They had no choice, they needed shelter. They made it to the city where they tried to sleep. The next morning they encountered their first "Cranks." However, these Cranks seemed way different than the ones gnawing on metal bars back at the building. They came down from upper levels and surrounded the Gladers, but they weren't nearly "as" insane as they expected them to be. Their leader guy was named Jorge and immediately started interrogating the Gladers, becoming very upset with Minho because of his snarky personality. Thomas convinces Jorge to talk with him in a private room so he could tell him their whole story without Minho saying something stupid and getting them all killed. After hearing what Thomas has to say Jorge agrees to take them across the city to the "safe haven" under one condition. That they get the cure too. So they begin the process of escaping from the other cranks. It was to be Jorge, Thomas, the Gladers, and one other crank named Brenda. She was still intelligent like Jorge and would be super helpful. Turns out the Flare works in stages. You slowly begin to lose your humanity until you are "full gone" meaning completely insane. Everyone is at different places with the Flare. They separate from the rest of the group and go get some food to eat. While they are eating, there is an explosion causing them all to have to run away. Unfortunately, Thomas and Brenda got separated from the rest of the group. They needed a plan and fast. They decided that the best idea was to just continue traveling through the city to their escape and if their friends do the same then they will meet up eventually. Brenda told Thomas about this place called the "Underneath" that they could travel through to avoid the surprises of the city. It's like an underground tunnel system throughout the whole city, but there are full gone Cranks down there. They took their chances and started traveling with their flashlights through the dark Underneath. They had been walking for quite a long time before encountering their first Crank. He was messed up bad, completely gone, missing an eye, missing all his hair,  scares, bruises, and boils all over his body, and missing his nose, and had a gurgly raspy voice. Behind him appeared a bunch more Cranks, all missing their noses, and they began to chase Thomas and Brenda down the hallway. Thomas and Brenda could outrun them since most of them were injured, so they hid in a corner under a table. Once the Cranks passed their spot they thought they were in the clear, but as soon as they exited their corner, the first Crank they met attacked them and Thomas had to stab him in the heart. After this ordeal, Thomas and Brenda decided they were done traveling the Underneath and went back up to the light and continued through the city. When it was getting late they found a  place to rest in a dead end alley, they fell asleep in the truck that was in the alley. Before they completely dozed off, Thomas and Brenda shared a sweet moment where they basically told each other their entire life stories. Thomas woke up first in the morning. He got up and noticed a plaque on the brick wall of the alley that said "Thomas, the real leader." Brenda said that those were posted all over the city which is another reason why they trusted him in the first place. However, before Thomas could truly process this, him and Brenda get cornered again by a group of Cranks. However these ones were not full gone like the ones in the Underneath, but definitely not nice ones like Brenda and Jorge. They invited the two of them to a "party" and when they declined they drew knives, screwdrivers, and guns on them forcing them to go. Once at the party they forced them to drink a mysterious liquid which was obviously drugged and knocked them out. Thomas woke up duck taped to a wooden chair, Brenda by his side in another wooden chair, but she had her mouth duck taped also. The leader of the Cranks that jumped him, Blondie, started interrogating Thomas, so he once again had to tell his whole life story. As soon as he was finished the Cranks left because they felt an ambush. The ambush turned out to be the rest of the Gladers! Minho came and unbound Thomas and Brenda. Even though they were just rescued, Brenda was in a bad mood because of something Thomas said about Teresa before they passed out. Anyways they go upstairs and reunite with the other Gladers and decide to make a run for it out of the city before something bad happens. As they were running away Thomas gets shot in the shoulder by Blondie. The world becomes a blur once again for Thomas, feeling more pain than he'd ever felt in his life. Minho beats up Blondie. Newt and the other Gladers press on Thomas's wound and begin to carry him. Thomas passes out and wake up to Brenda holding his hand, then all of a sudden these random people in green hazmat suits drag Brenda away from him and carry Thomas somewhere else. Their hazmat suits said "WICKED" on them. Thomas passes out AGAIN. And wakes up in what seems to be a hospital, and he is no longer in pain. He can hear them talking about him, saying strange things like "Are we sure this doesn't change things?" And talking about variables and getting him back as soon as possible. Thomas drifts off to sleep once more. He wakes up hanging from what Jorge called a "Berg." It's a big thing of machinery carrying Thomas, and it drops him off on the ground, immediately his friends surround him. They escaped the city after Thomas got shot, so there they were in the middle of the desert with what looked like a makeshift hut for shelter, and the mountains about a day or two in the distance. They go in the hut and Thomas tells them about what he experienced and the things that he heard WICKED say. People had so many questions as to why they saved Thomas but they didn't save any of the other's who had died along the way. Thomas tried to explain himself, which helped a little, but people were still confused. They weren't going to travel until the sun was going down so the Gladers used their day to sleep. Thomas woke up to Teresa calling out in his mind telling him that something awful was going to happen to him tomorrow, and he just has to trust her. When everybody woke up, they began their journey towards the mountains once again. Thomas and Brenda were having the first good conversation they've had in a while when of course, Teresa interrupts. She appears with a bunch of other girls behind her. They all were holding weapons. This was group B, the group that was told they had to kill Thomas. Teresa comes up to Thomas and pretends she doesn't even know him and smashes him in the head with a wooden spear a couple times when he tries to talk to her. She says that the Gladers have to let them take him or else they will start shooting. So Thomas had no choice but to be kidnapped by these girls. They literally dragged him until they made it to a place in the mountains that the rest of Group B couldn't see them. Then they let him walk. Once they made it back to the girls' camp they tied Thomas to a tree and gave him some food. Teresa had whispered in his ear to keep trusting her. When Teresa wasn't around, Thomas had a conversation with some of the other girls, convinced them to not kill him. However, when Teresa got back she did not seem happy with this idea and she stormed off to who knows where. Then the girls untied Thomas and he and the girls continued north to the safe haven without Teresa. Though the girls decided not to kill him, they said that Teresa had been very strict about it. They had been walking for quite some time when Thomas heard Teresa speak behind him, she told him to follow her. His instincts told him to stop but he did anyways. While they were walking Teresa started speaking nonsense about how her and Aris know eachother, and that Aris is right behind them. Sure enough, he was, with a knife to Thomas's back. They keep walking and they make to this random hole in the mountain. There is a pole, and there is a mysterious chamber. All of a sudden Aris and Teresa are making out in front of Thomas, and then they decide it's time to kill him. Thomas at this point was begging for them to get over with it. However, as they were leading Thomas to the chamber he attacks Aris, but then Teresa hits him with her spear. Thomas it extremely hurt physically and emotionally and is thrown into the chamber. A mysterious gas knocks him out. He has a weird memory dream while asleep, throughout this book he has these dreams but they are almost like flashbacks from his life before the trials. In this one, Aris and Teresa and Thomas were all saying goodbye to eachother. Thomas wakes up, and he isn't dead. The chamber door opens and Teresa is sitting there in tears apologizing for what she and Aris did. Saying how if they didn't do what WICKED asked no matter how harsh, they would kill Thomas. Thomas was extremely hurt by everything that happened, and even if he believed her, he couldn't forgive her. They started walking north as they were before the whole ordeal and met up with Group A and Group B. Along the way the three of them were talking, explaining to eachother everything that happened and trying to collectively piece their thoughts together. When they met up with the other groups, everyone was standing in a circle around an orange flag that said "The Safe Haven." Everybody spent the next 30 minutes hopeless and confused. Thomas looked at his watch, they had 35 minutes left of their 2 weeks in the Scorch. There's no way this flag was "it." They all waited for something to happen. In fact, the sky had been growing dark and they knew it was about to storm. That's when dozens of these big chamber things emerged from the ground all around them. They watched, as big slimy monsters emerged from each one. They didn't have faces, and they had various lightbulb looking things hanging from them. There was exactly one for each of the Gladers and Group B to fight. They charged at the monsters stabbing at their skin. That's when Thomas realized that a couple people had taken a different approach. Instead of stabbing at their flesh they were taking out the lightbulbs one by one and this was slowly but surely taking away their strength. The storm began, lightning piercing the ground around them. There was one big strike that sent Thomas flying backwards and killed his monster. The only people left fighting their monsters were Jorge and Brenda, other people ran to help them. Teresa and Thomas knew they had to do something before the next lightning strike so they got in a chamber. Jorge and Brenda came and joined them and they were trying to figure out what to do. They covered the top of their chamber, but then they heard a loud rumbling noise outside. It was the same Berg that had saved Thomas when he was shot. Then about a dozen more monsters came and blocked the people from it. There was very little communication, but everyone knew what they had to do. What WICKED wanted them to do, and what they had no choice but to do. Fight the remaining monsters and make it onto the Berg. After the remaining monsters were killed the Berg started rising as they ran towards it. People jumping and flinging themselves onto the aircraft. Brenda was almost too late as the Berg was rising and she was holding on. Thomas, Teresa, and Jorge helped pull her on. There were men with guns on the ship, and they took Brenda and Jorge away. They told the people that "it was all over now." And they allowed them to take hot showers, wear fresh clothes, and have a meal. Then slowly but surely everybody drifted off to sleep. Thomas woke up from a dream of Brenda speaking to him in his head saying something bad was going to happen to him. He woke up in a completely white room, and he was wearing white clothes. There was a dark brown desk, but there was an invisible wall separating him from that side of the room. He was alone, and in shock, but didn't let himself panic, and drifted off to sleep again. He heard Teresa speaking in his head. Teresa was wondering where Thomas was at, said that they took him away and it's been almost a week. Thomas was confused and furious because he doesn't think he can ever trust Teresa again. He tells Teresa to go way, and the last thing she says to him is "Wicked is good." The book ends there.

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Person vs Nature

The Gladers had no idea what to expect when they entered the Scorch. But one of the very first things they had to battle was not a Crank, or Group A, it was the sun. The sun would burn them in a matter of hours if they didn't have protection. Throughout the whole book, when are traveling in the desert they must protect themselves from the heat of the sun. Not only that but as they were entering the city there was an incredible storm. Loud thunder, heavy rain, powerful wind, and vicious lightning all around. This storm was different than any storm they could've imagined, and the lightning was striking down so close to them. Unfortunately one of the Gladers was killed during this storm.

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Person vs Person

Brenda and Thomas encounter a group of Cranks in the Underneath. They begin to follow them and their only goal is to kill them and steal their noses. Brenda and Thomas have to strategize to stay away from the Cranks so they go into hiding. When they thought the Cranks were gone, there was one still waiting for them. They could no longer get away, this Crank was going to fight to the death. Brenda and Thomas had to work together to hold the man down as Thomas stabbed him in the heart.

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Person vs Self

This book often brings us into Thomas's mind and thoughts. Which means that the reader gets lots of insight on Thomas's internal conflicts. One of which is seeing signs plastered all over the city saying that he is the "true leader." Thomas doesn't know what that means or entails and he struggles with this. Secondly, he has internal conflict concerning Teresa and Brenda. He struggles with having feelings for Brenda and missing Teresa. Another internal conflict he has occurs when he is asleep. When Thomas would fall asleep, he would sometimes have what he called "memory dreams." Dreams that seemed almost like flashbacks, and felt so real. When he was awake he couldn't help but think about these dreams and what they might mean. All of these different things caused Thomas lots of stress throughout the book.

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Sometimes the hardest thing to do is the right thing to do.

Throughout the Scorch, the Gladers and Group B were given different tests, and with these tests came difficult decisions and actions. However, the easy way out was most of the time not the right way out. The biggest place I saw this theme was when Teresa and Aris betrayed Thomas and threw him in the gas chamber. As a Thomas fan, I can't agree with how they treated Thomas, but as a reader I can see exactly where they are coming from and why they had to do it. WICKED told them that if they didn't do what they said Thomas would die, but if they did what they said and pretended to betray Thomas, ultimately Thomas would live. In order to keep Thomas alive, they had to betray him. This was a very hard thing to do, but it was the right thing to do.
Another place I saw this theme was after Group B kidnapped Thomas and brought him to their camp and tied him to a tree. They had been given specific instructions to kill Thomas, and that would help them receive the cure. Killing Thomas would have been so easy, he was so outnumbered and the girl's had incredible weapons. Taking the easy way out and killing Thomas would have been a breeze. However, after conversation they chose not to kill Thomas and continue the journey to the safe haven with him. Choosing to keep Thomas alive was certainly a hard decision for them to make, but they knew that killing Thomas would not have done them any good.

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I give this book a 4 out of 5 stars.

In my opinion, this book is a perfect, intriguing, and captivating story for ages thirteen to fifteen. Since I had great interest in the first book, I still loved reading the second book and seeing how the characters evolved. However, some of the events in the book were a little too "out there" for my liking. For example, the flying balls of molten metal at the beginning. I understand this is a fiction story, and it's a really good one, but that was just a little too cheesy.

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January 13, 2021
January 27, 2021
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