The Kill Order

So I feel kind of awkward posting another blog from the same series, but this is the last one. We all know of what happened to Thomas and the rest of the world in the Maze Runner series. But... how did it all start? Why did it happen? Well, I'm here to tell you, after reading the prequel of the series, The Kill Order.

The Flare was released into the world 13 years before Thomas' time. It started to spread rapidly, and soon it was out of hand. A couple of brave people, Mark, Trina, Alec, and Lana, tried to stop the Flare by delivering an immune girl to the government so they can try to find a cure. If you want to read the rest of the summary click here:

Summary

I found this book interesting, but a little depressing.  The people in this book had already gone through a lot of pain, and at the end SPOILER they end up dying. Also, since we know that their effort was in vain, because we know the Flare was present even during Thomas' time. SOO basically in the end the entire story of The Kill Order was basically a waste. The only part that really seemed to matter was how the Flare was introduced. I don't think this book was really necessary. Honestly, I am done with death and destruction for a while.

If you have read The Kill Order how do you think the story was? Do you think the story was necessary?

The Death Cure

It has all come a full circle. After going through so many hardships, suffering so much, and losing friends, Thomas' story has come to an end.

After the Scorch Trials, Thomas, the gladers, and the members of group B were carried away to WICKED's headquarters, where they were all told a devastating truth. They all had the Flare. And to make matters worse, there was no cure to it, and that was WICKED's goal, to find a cure. They told them that all the kids were being used as test subjects, to record their brain patterns and try to find a cure. Also, they told them that most of them were immune to the Flare, yet some were not because they needed a control group. Newt was one of them. After hearing all this, Thomas learns that WICKED wants to cut open his brain to try and complete the cure. He and the other gladers don't trust WICKED, so they run away and counter attack and destroy WICKED. But some friends die along the way such as Teresa and Newt. At the end the gladers and other immune people, after going through a flat transporter, arrive in a wildlife paradise, where they will live out the rest of their lives as the rest of the world goes into extinction.

I found this books ending kind of sad, and confusing. All the effort that the gladers and WICKED go through... for nothing? In the end, basically the world ends except for the small group of about a hundred people. How will they survive without the help of others, and without technology? I feel like this ending was left a little incomplete, and that the author could possibly make a sequel to this series, maybe showing the story of Thomas' kids and how they travel back into the real world. What do you think?

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

I am reading the book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. This book is about a 12 year old kid, who has to go trough things no child, or man, should have to go through. His entire family was killed by a group of rebels, and these rebels were killing people throughout Sierra Leone. Ishmael was taken in by a squad of soldiers fighting against the rebels, and was trained to become a deadly killing machine. For three years, Ishmael and other kids killed and killed, hopped up on drugs. But after these years, Ishmael was taken to a rehabilitation center and started a new life.

The main idea of this book was to show the struggles, and pain of war. Ishmael's entire life almost got ruined, he lost his family, he was fighting in the front lines, he could have died anytime. He showed the struggles of life in Sierra Leone as a boy soldier. Specific examples of the hardships of the war is the lose of his friends and family and he had a lack of food and resources to survive.

Summary(Link)

The number of boy soldiers that fought in the Sierra Leone war was shocking. It was 5,000-10,000 kids. Most of them died, they didn't have the luck that Ismael did when he was rescued to be rehabilitated.

Link

Also many people don't realize this, but even today children are being used to fight wars. Examples of this is that many countries use child soldiers such as: Uganda. The outside research connects to the realization that war is full of pain and struggles. In our memoir it just refers to Ishmael being recruited. However, when Chris and I researched this we discovered that must children were drugged and abducted to join these countries armies. This connects to our realization because it shows how much pain the family went through when the child was taken away and was fighting for his life. It also shows the pain and struggle of war not only affects the victim itself, but also their family.

A Long Way Gone is an interesting book, that shows a different lifestyle. It shows the struggles and problems that people faced in the past, and still do today.

Ismael Beah older: