With over 50,000 other reviews, I'm a bit of a Johnny-come-lately here, but hopefully my drop in the bucket is read by someone. Let me start by saying I've never seen the movie, but it had piqued my curiosity, so I grabbed the book when I found it at a thrift store.

Tl;dr: I liked it. Would reread someday, it's quick, and I intend to read the sequels.

First off, Dashner is an absolute master of pacing. I don't recall this book sagging once, it clipped right along at a cruising pace or really put the pedal to the metal, but never once did it come to a halt. The necessary compression of events might spoil believability a bit for older readers, but this is already a book about insanely smart, resilient teens locked in a pastoral nightmare that gets weirder the more Thomas discovers; suspending disbelief over pacing is the least of your worries.

The setting is pretty cool. Thanks to the aforementioned pacing, you don't get a ton of worldbuilding, there's not much lore and you really need to visualize a lot of it yourself (or check out art online). What there is is sufficient, and you get that feel of being there. Same for characterization; a few people have personalities, but for the most part everyone is brusque as a way to keep to the plot moving along without exposition. It can be frustrating to be put in the same position as Thomas, kept in the dark, but it's a brilliant stroke on Dashner's part.

The story evolves as you'd expect for a cinematic YA adventure, except largely devoid of romance; the horror fills that role instead. A solid foreshadowing and gives you some idea of what might happen next, but some details really are very surprising.

The ending is elation and a gutpunch. You'll know what I mean.