The Kill Order ~ James Dashner (The Maze Runner #0.5)

★★★☆☆

This follows seemingly random characters as they attempt to survive the initial sun flares and then the Flare virus that destroyed the world prior to The Maze Runner. It's grittier than the trilogy is, actually showing who and what the Cranks really are. I really enjoyed the descent into madness that MC Mark goes through (I'm trash for that kinda thing) and found a lot of the imagery much better than anything in the trilogy. Unfortunately, the characters sucked. Mark was basically just Thomas but with a sliver of a personality, and the whole memory loss thing with Trina was pretty unnecessary and didn't add anything. Alec was fun and probably my favorite character but was still a random addition. None of the deaths were impactful, but I was surprised just how far some of the more intense stuff went. Over all, it was a fun read but not necessary to the trilogy in any way.

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