REVIEW - "The Scorch Trials"

Description from Goodreads

Solving the Maze was supposed to be the end. No more puzzles. No more variables. And no more running. Thomas was sure that escape meant he and the Gladers would get their lives back. But no one really knew what sort of life they were going back to.
In the Maze, life was easy. They had food, and shelter, and safety . . . until Teresa triggered the end. In the world outside the Maze, however, the end was triggered long ago.
Burned by sun flares and baked by a new, brutal climate, the earth is a wasteland. Government has disintegrated—and with it, order—and now Cranks, people covered in festering wounds and driven to murderous insanity by the infectious disease known as the Flare, roam the crumbling cities hunting for their next victim . . . and meal.
The Gladers are far from finished with running. Instead of freedom, they find themselves faced with another trial. They must cross the Scorch, the most burned-out section of the world, and arrive at a safe haven in two weeks. And WICKED has made sure to adjust the variables and stack the odds against them.
Thomas can only wonder—does he hold the secret of freedom somewhere in his mind? Or will he forever be at the mercy of WICKED?

I have finished the book and I feel like I am at a loss for words.  There are so many things to take in when reading this book.  James Dashner has put together a really good novel.  He has come up with so many variables that you have to wonder how his mind works?

Thomas and his fellow glader's have escaped the maze, have been taken to a safe location, to find out that it is not a safe location.  The maze was phase one of the trials, they now have to follow through to phase two, the scorch trials. 

Right from the start of the trial, the deaths begin to add up. This trial is brutal.  There is no mercy, they must cross a hostile environment, meet up with crazy people who have no grasp of humanity, and battle the elements.  Thomas must face complete and total betrayal and still keep his sanity and will to survive. This book does not lack for action, and you will keep turning the pages, anxious to find out what happens next.

I purchased this book, because I loved the "Maze Runner" and had to find out what happened next.  This book is a cliff hanger and I will be buying the third book, to see what happens next. (I am redundantly using "what happens next, but I don't feel like changing it today.  I'm tired and found I am having hand surgery in two weeks, my brain doesn't want to be creative right now.)

I gave it four stars.

Content warning: graphic violence