Book Review: The Fever Code by James Dashner

Goodreads Summary: Once there was a world’s end.
The forests burned, the lakes and rivers dried up, and the oceans swelled.
Then came a plague, and fever spread across the globe. Families died, violence reigned, and man killed man.
Next came WICKED, who were looking for an answer. And then they found the perfect boy.
The boy’s name was Thomas, and Thomas built a maze.
Now there are secrets.
There are lies.
And there are loyalties history could never have foreseen.
This is the story of that boy, Thomas, and how he built a maze that only he could tear down.
All will be revealed.

Goodreads Rating: 4.09 stars with over 39,000 ratings

Genre Listing: Young Adult, Dystopia, Science Fiction, Post Apocalyptic. Adventure, Teen

Goodreads Challenge: 22/60

2021 Reading Challenge: #20 Read a book you meant to read on last year's challenge (find the entire reading challenge here)

Previous reviews on the series: Maze Runner, The Scorch Trials, The Death Cure, The Kill Order

Book Review:

Happy Saturday, readers! I'm excited to announce that I finally finished the Maze Runner series. It only took me a year and some change. One of my friends loaned me the entire series, and I had intended on reading it all the way through last year so that I wasn't holding on to her books for eternity. With the pandemic, however, Disease heavy dystopian did not feel like an appealing read. I've had about ten books lined up for this spot because I never complete challenges and get sidetracked.

This is going to be a relatively short review today. Most of what I'd talk about would be spoilers for not only this book but the whole series, and most of the time, I try really hard not to spoil anything. For those of you who don't know, The Fever Code is a prequel in the series. The events that happen are before the first book, Maze Runner. So chronologically, it would go The Kill Order, The Fever Code, The Maze Runner, The Scorch Trials, The Death Cure. However, if you've never read any of the series and aren't familiar with the story, I would definitely read Maze Runner, Scorch Trials, Death Cure, Kill Order, and Fever Code.  Reading it Chronologically would really take the fun out of the story and provide so many spoilers, in my opinion. That being said, now that I've read the whole thing, I kind of want to reread it starting with The Kill Order. It could be interesting, but that's a challenge for another day (or year).

I enjoyed The Fever Code by James Dashner, but I don't know if I was as into it as the other books in the series.  The entire time I was reading Maze Runner, Scorch Trials, and Death Cure, I really wanted the background story of before the kids got in the maze and how that came about. The Fever Code definitely provides that. We get a little background into Chancellor Paige, Newt, Chuck, Brenda, Jorge, and obviously Thomas and Theresa. The Glades makes an appearance once the Maze is complete. From there, we get a look at how the Gladers start to find their place in their new home. 

While there was some action in the story, I don't feel like there was as much in this book as in the others. It mostly just goes through the day-to-day of the WICKED organization and how the maze came to be. There were some twists and turns, but overall, everything felt more level than the other books. I don't know if that makes any sense. Hopefully, it does. One of the things that bothered me the most with The Fever Code is a lot of it Thomas and Theresa are pretty young. Really until they hit their teenage years, the age the story said they were didn't really feel like it corresponded to how they acted or talked. I know, obviously, they're supposed to be prodigy geniuses, but it just didn't seem consistent to me and took me out of the story a bit.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, but I think I would have liked a little more action and maybe Thomas and Theresa to seem a little more like the age they were supposed to be. I never really felt like the age they acted and the age they were ever lined up. I did enjoy that I felt like a lot of the unanswered questions got closure, however. There's apparently a couple of short stories about Thomas's memories and Newt's experience from his account in The Death Cure. I think it'd be interesting to see a story from post-Death Cure. I think a lot of skills they learned in Maze Runner would come into play for that. It could be interesting.