WICKED is good.

As an avid reader of James Dashner’s The Maze Runner series, that statement has really cultivated mushrooms of questions in my mind. Countless sacrifices and deaths are injected into the series’ pages and have challenged me to probe for answers. However, my search is over. Everything is perfectly laid out in The Death Cure, the third and final book in the series.

When Thomas, along with the remaining Gladers and Group B, finish the Phase Two experiment, they are again brought back to the headquarters of WICKED (World In Catastrophe: Killzone Experiment Department), a government agency that seeks a cure for a fatal disease called Flare which provokes insanity. WICKED explains why they are the subjects for the Maze and Scorch Trials, and what these trials are for. Now WICKED plans to give Thomas and the others their memories back by removing their mind-control chips. However, this will prohibit them from using their telepathic powers. Will Thomas and the others go along with the plan and thank WICKED for being good? Or, will they turn down the offer and rebel against the agency for what it has done to them?

This book put its claws into me bit by bit. The sharp plot Dashner has created is so believable that it perfectly supplements the previous books. Answers to questions that mushroomed from The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trials are clearly visible, as if highlighted in the pages.

Dashner’s writing style is insanely captivating. His use of imagery is natural and isn’t annoying. Dashner knows when and where to use similes and metaphors to vividly create a picture. The way he describes the Cranks – people who have succumbed to the Flare – is so risky, but he manages his powerful words so that they draw a thick line between Cranks and zombies. The fight scenes are also so detailed that I literally hold my breath. Since this tale is dystopian, the suspense factor is present and causes my fingers to keep flipping pages.

More characters are introduced in The Death Cure, which adds mystery to the story. Dashner is slow to reveal characters’ agendas. Their emotions are either real or a bluff, but I was able to figure them out after I got deeper into the plot’s core. The dialogue is witty, humorous and sarcastic – which sometimes drove me to act like a Crank. Dashner really has created a set of amazingly unique characters and notable lines.

The Death Cure obeys the law of gravity as everything falls down to place by the book’s end. The well-sharpened plot, the author’s galactic imagination, and the distinct characters plucked those mushrooms of questions from my mind, leaving no traces of their roots. The Death Cure left me stunned and satisfied. Now I’m giving you the task to read it until you reach the final page, and from that moment, decide whether WICKED is good or not.