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The Maze Runner and Insurgent


Gophk

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I read The Maze Runner by James Dashner and thought the ending was great, but then I read Insurgent by Victoria Roth and realized that the endings are very similar. *spoilers*

In both stories, society is experiencing serious problems, so some people get their memories erased and live in an enclosure separated from the regular world. The purpose of this is to find individuals with specific talents that will be useful for solving society's problems. Once these people are identified, they will leave the enclosure and use their talents to help solve society's problems.



Did one author copy the other? Is this a coincidence? Or is this a common plot idea in sci-fi books? Did anyone else read both books and find the similarity odd?

Edited by Athena
Edited to put the spoilers between spoiler tags.
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I've edited your post to put the spoilers between spoiler tags, so people will not accidentally read it. Welcome to the forum :). I've read Insurgent but not yet The Maze Runner, so it'll be interesting to see what I think once I'm done with it. Did you like both books?

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I think there are certain central themes to YA Dystopian books. 

Hunger Games could have taken elements from Stephen King (Richard Bachman)'s The Long Walk.  Some of Divergent has some elements of Hunger Games. 

The premise of Firestarter (King) also comes to mind, maybe even the dystopian A Haindmaids Tale, where certain people are selected to "help" the government or society.  I will be reading The Maze Runner in the next couple of months, I am trying to decide whether to see the movie first or read it first.

Edited by Anna Begins
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  • 3 months later...

I am bumping this up for those of us reading The Maze Runner (and also for those of you who have read Maze Runner and Divergent, just don't spoil the end of both books, please).  Does anyone have thoughts about Maze Runner and Divergent?  While I already responded to the spoiler above, now that I am reading Maze Runner, I just feel some of the feelings Thomas has are similar to those of Tris.  I am not saying Roth ripped off Dashner AT ALL.  They are two completely different books.  If anything, there is a Lord of the Flies feel (with Maze Runner).

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