I’m not sure how I missed the boat on the Maze Runner series by James Dashner, but I’m glad Dashner and his lovable main character, Thomas, finally stumbled into my life.

In my quest to finish my own young adult dystopian novel, I have been reading everything I can get my hands on in the genre. Dashner’s books equipped with crazy experiments and ludicrous trials are just the sort I love to read. And let’s just say, someday, I hope I can write half as well.

A coming of age story full of mystery, friendship, and love set in a crazy futuristic society. What more can you ask for? Seriously, check it out and be prepared to turn every page with frenzied haste to see what happens next. Don’t eat. Don’t sleep. Don’t shower. Just try to figure out what is going on and why our society is so messed up.

I am a big believer that books come to you when you need them most, some whacky way of the universe speaking to you, and Dashner’s series confirms my highly scientific theory. Maybe it is all a plan by WICKED – those people know everything – but it has worked. I am riveted.

Dashner provides an exhilarating, entertaining, and sometimes horrifying take on what it would be like if the world took an incredibly different direction. I won’t spoil it for you, but think experiments designed to figure out the fittest among us. But somehow the fittest are all teenagers. Weird.

Teenagers saving the world. Yet again. Maybe we should just give it over to them when they get their driver’s licenses.

This series definitely deserves a gold star. If you can get through the fact that the characters are going to experience every possible obstacle and sometimes things don’t turn out in their favor, then put on your big girl or big boy or non-gender specific panties, these books are for you.

Oh, and bonus, the first one has been turned into a movie. Second movie set to release in 2018.