Book Review: The Death Cure by James Dashner

Title: The Death Cure 
Author: James Dashner
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Genre: Young Adult (dystopian)
Why I read it/how I found it: I read the first two in the series, The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trials so of course I need to finish the series!

Description:
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?

Review:
This may be the most action-packed of the entire series, although that's hard to say because they all have a lot of action. But in this book especially, I saw it play out just like an action movie. There's certainly never a dull moment, and at times I realized how emotionally invested I was in these books, characters, and their lives and decisions. Now, in the midst of all of this action, I felt a little like Dashner added in a lot in the middle because he had an idea of the beginning and end, but needed filler for the middle. Just a lot of action and exciting stuff to add some pages onto the book. As for the ending of this series, I'll say that I'm satisfied. I'm a little disappointed with one aspect of the end (but won't say what so there'll be no spoilers), but not feeling cheated as a reader.

Other info: This is the conclusion to The Maze Runner Trilogy. The first book has been opted for a movie by Fox. You can find James Dashner's blog here.

Utah Festival of Books

To quote Rapunzel:

I got there about 10:30 and picked up a sheet of events. As I went through and marked the ones I wanted to attend, I noticed that David Archuleta was there. So my friend is a huge fan of his, and I texted her about it, then realized how mean that was because she was at home in Nevada. That led me to buying a CD (which she said she would pay me back for...I didn't feel that guilty) and later that day had him sign it for her.

Whilst I waited for the events I wanted to attend start, I caught sight of Possession by Elana Johnson. Yeah, you know the one that comes out today? So I grabbed it and got it early. I also picked up a copy of Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George and another copy of Paranormalcy by Kiersten White for my sister's birthday this past Sunday.

I caught James Dashner's presentation and then got a copy of The Maze Runner signed for the give-away. Standing in line, I met Alice Beesley of Writing Snippets and had a nice little writer-to-writer exchange with her. And it was pretty cool, I got my own copies of The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trials signed at LTUE back in February and he said I looked familiar. I missed Ann Cannon's presentation, but I did get my copy of Charlotte's Rose signed by her. She just sighed and smiled when she saw it. I told her how I read it back when I was ten or eleven, and there I was, a college student all grown up. Usually I ask authors to only sign the book (I don't sell them or anything, it's just something of mine that I like to do) but she seemed so enthused about it, I let her personalize it to me.

Then I got to hear Kiersten White speak for the first time. She's mentioned before on twitter and such that she speaks fast, but as a Gilmore Girls veteran, I kept up very well. And she's hilarious, it was so much fun hearing her speak. Then I got my copies of Spells and Illusions signed by Aprilynne Pike. Which, if you ever get books signed by her, she gives you a stick-on tattoo and each book has a designated color that she signs in, and their own phrase she puts. Then I waited for Kiersten White to sign my two copies of Paranormalcy. She was so awesome; I'm looking forward to the Supernaturally signing down in San Diego this summer.

Then I braved the David Archuleta fangirls. In the longest line of the day (sad, isn't it?) I waited and snapped pictures to send to my friend in line, and now have the CD stowed away for when I'll see her again in the fall. I went back down and got my copy of Princess of the Midnight Ball signed by Jessica Day George. While I waited in line for that, I told my roommate Emily to go talk to Kiersten White, because I told her she would get along great with her. After I finished with the signing, I met up with Emily who was indeed having a conversation so awesome with Kiersten, she bought a copy of Paranormalcy for herself and had it signed. She started reading it right away, laughing the whole time, and later in that day tried to find her again to talk to her. Kiersten, if you get a stalker...I'm sorry. She loves the book.

We also went to the Women Author's Panel, which was a lot of fun to hear them talk. Last, we saw Elana Johnson speak (well, I did, this was when Emily went off to find Kiersten) and then got my copy of Possession signed.

Now, I was bummed because they said Sara Zarr would be there, but she wasn't, and so my copy of Sweethearts doesn't have a signature on it.

Overall an amazing day! I'm looking forward to next year already. I might just be a BYU traitor and go over to the U of U when they have it in September.

The Maze Runner Giveaway!

I've just gotten back from the Utah Festival of Books and in one of the two bags of books I brought back lies a copy of The Maze Runner by James Dashner, which had been voted on by you all for which signed book you wanted me to giveaway. And, as promised, this book has been signed by James Dashner. And he says thank you for wanting his book.

The giveaway is going to be simple. Just fill out this form to enter. Following the blog gives you an extra entry, but isn't needed. And (sorry foreigners) I'm only going stateside, so open only to the U.S. The contest ends a week from today on June 11.

I'll have a post up on Tuesday about the fun goings-on at the festival. Good luck everyone!

Day Two at Life, the Universe and Everything

Since today I was at LTUE from 9am-8pm with the only break to go to one class, this is going to be a heck of a long post. I'll try to keep it interesting with pictures and such.

See? A platypus. Already entertaining.

First Panel: "How to Research, When to Stop, and What to Use" with Dene Low, Scott Parkin, J. Scott Savage, and Eric Swedin.
As this entails, it went over how to research. An idea I have is going to need a whole lot of research, when I get around to it, so this is why I went to this panel (there are abour three or four an hour you can choose to go to). Something that never really crossed my mind that they brought up was talking to people. And after I was like, duh. Of course you can talk to an expert. But I'm a rather shy person and don't think to just go up and talk to people, so this was weird for me. They also talked about different helpful websites (yes, Wikipedia actually can be helpful).

For the 10am hour, I didn't go to a panel. Instead, I went to James Dashner's reading.
Oh, but this was not just any reading. If you don't know, James Dashner wrote The Maze Runner and its sequel, The Scorch Trials. Both of them are fantastic books and if you're into YA and sci-fi dystopia, definitely look into them!
Anyway, the final book of the trilogy, The Death Cure comes out October 11, 2011. But today, I heard Mr. Dashner read the first three chapters and saw the cover, which has not been revealed yet.

I did take a picture of the cover on my phone, but I'm not posting it because
1. It's from my phone, so it's not exactly the clearest picture in the world.
2. Mr. Dashner will get into trouble if I do.
3. I don't even know how to get a picture on my phone to my computer.
And I can't tell you anything about the first three chapters, except that they are awesome and I am totally pumped for The Death Cure.

The next segment was the main address with Steve Keele. He's an artist that does a lot of fantasy/sci-fi work.

I only got to stay a half hour for the panel of "What Is an Agent, and What Can They Do for You?" with James Dashner, Lesli Muir Lytle, and Tyler Whitesides before I had to go to class.
I wish I could have stayed longer, because it was really helpful in advice about agents. Mr. Dashner shared his experience with an agent that was not the best for him, and how the agent he has now is great for him. Also, it was noted that no agent is perfect, but there are a lot of good ones out there. They also expressed how helpful it was that an agent help edit. Also, it turns out some writers think they don't need an agent, which is very, very wrong.

At this point I had to go to my British Literature class and discuss Thomas Carlyle, and afterwards I hurried back to LTUE. I went into the Storyboard panel at first, which then I realized that they were discussing animation which I have no pressing need to know about, so I switched and went into "The Problems of Sequels" with Larry Correia, Bree Despain, Anna del C Dye, Jessica Day George, and Mette Ivie Harrison.
They hit some key problems authors have with sequels, including backstory of the first book, what to do with a character arc that has already been "completed", and writing a book for the series, not the book itself. They suggested to weave the backstory like you do in the first book of what happened before then. And they also talked about how you shouldn't return a character to the way s/he was at the beginning of the first book--give them new challenges. And, of course, first time authors should write a stand-alone that could become a sequel.

Next came "Plotstorming from Character" with Paul Genesse.
This one talked about how important it is to develop characters with depth and interest, someone the reader can care about. After all, it's characters that really make us want to read on. I know I've read some really interesting plots, but the dull or frustrating characters made me dislike the book. Yet amazing characters I care about have spiced up the plot of an otherwise dull story. My favorite advice: strong characters make choices, so have characters make choices and not just be blown around.

When 4:00 came rolling along, I went to "Rewriting to Greatness: Five Editing Techniques to Help Improve Your Stories" with David Farland.
Basically: Edit a lot. Look at big stuff, little stuff. Don't over-edit, that just kills the story. But objectively look at what works and what doesn't for the story. Flesh out characters more, shorten unneeded descriptions, all of that stuff.

The next panel I attended was "What You Can and Can't Do in a YA Novel" with Mette Ivie Harrison, Elana Johnson, Bree Despain, Robison Wells, and J. Scott Savage.
First, about this, I must say: Get your mind out of it.

Except for one question at the end, no one talked about sex in YA. Instead, they talked about how YA was different from adult books, and in more than just cleanliness and the age of the protagonist (although that is certainly part of it). YA has a tendancy for there to be hope at the end. I mean, really, can you think of a YA book that didn't end with some glimmer of hope or happiness? I haven't read many adult books (I drawing a blank on even one except for classics) but right now they tend to be a lot bleaker.

At 6:00 I attended the panel of "How to Get and Develop Killer Story Ideas" with John Brown and Larry Correia.
They talked about listening to your "zing" sensor, that feeling of what type of situation could make an interesting story. They talked about throwing out ideas for character, plot, setting, and problem. They even encouraged throwing out generic answers and then using them to find a twist to make it original. Then we spent time brainstorming about Wyoming, ghosts, and lost Japanese tourists.

By 7:00, I'm pretty tired and pretty hungry. But, I stuck through for one more hour because the next presentation talked about this:

"Lessons on Story from The Hunger Games" with John Brown.
The only thing that could make me fangirl more would be if they had "Lessons on Character from Peeta Mellark" with Suzanne Collins.
I think an important point Mr. Brown made was that every story has been done already. I've known Hunger Games getting crap about being "done before" but I agree with Mr. Brown. The Hunger Games is different, and it is awesome.
He also talked about how to capture a reader, there needs to be this equation: Likeability+Problem=Rooting. He also compared Katniss and Rue. We feel sympathy for both, but in the end root for Katniss because she's active and clearly has a good chance at surviving. He talked about dilemma, to not cut your story to proportions but do what is right for it, and to present turns.
The only thing that ruined it was that in one of the pictures on the slideshow, Peeta was being represented by Alex Pettyfer, when obviously this guy is Peeta:

Hmmm. Hunter Parrish.

Great day, tiring day (although maybe that accounts from my lack of sleep this week...)
Anyway, more tomorrow!