We get another description of the Grievers.  It’s basically a big monster slug with weird metal bits that pop in and out of it at random.  It also shoots out metal spikes, then rolls along the ground, then sucks the spikes back in again.  I’m having a really hard time picturing this.  Wouldn’t the spikes stop it from rolling?   Does it somehow use spikes to grab the ground?

Also, it moans.

Thomas tries to play dead and hope it doesn’t see him, but no luck, because after we waste several pages watching it wander around the ground, it starts to climb the wall.  I think it’s supposed to be dramatic, but our introduction to this stupid impossibility monster was it climbing a wall, so I’m more thinking “duh” than “uh-oh.”

Thomas decides to run, and he decides that his only option is to go sideways because running o the ground is “sure death.” 

Idiot, the thing is rolling around the wall the exact same way it rolls around the ground.  Because this is a shitty book, we aren’t actually told how fast it moves, but it seems to be about equal since it’s moving in the same manner.  Thomas, on the other hand, is going to be significantly slower moving across the wall than he would on the ground.  He really has no reason to believe that going horizontally has any more chance than running on the ground.

Unless he decides to swing like fucking Tarzan.

He’s doing all this with ivy vines, by the way.  I gave it a pass when he was climbing up, because ivy gets tangled up and really you’re being supported on several vines and not just one if you’re climbing it.  And some breeds of ivy can be pretty thick.  It’s still a stretch, but…eh.

But I draw the line at swinging on ivy vines.  That’s fucking stupid in a variety of ways.

1. Again, the vines are all tangled up, you’re not going to get very far.
2. Even if you could get just one vine loose, it would break under your weight.
3. Ivy does not have roots/suckers only at the top of it.  It has those things all along the vine, so you’d spend all your time trying to yank enough of it off the wall first to swing with.

And that’s all assuming this breed of ivy has thick enough vines and strong enough roots to support you in the first place!

And yet somehow Thomas defies all logic and manages to move across the surface of the wall like he’s Spiderman.  He only stops when he literally smacks into a perpendicular wall.  The Griever catchers up to him and he beats the thing by basically jumping on it like Mario.  Yes, I’m going overboard with the references, but come on!  This shit is only acceptable in comics, B-movies, and video games, and even then we still complain about the first two!

And why the fuck would you jump on something that you know has sharp spikes somewhere under its squishy skin?  He even mentions sinking down a few inches into the flesh, but reasonably speaking there should be sharp spikes right there.

He did all this while fucking swinging from ivy vines just fucking fuckity I can’t even what the fuck is this book JUST LOOK AT YOURSELF HOW DID THIS EVER GET WRITTEN WAS YOUR AUTHOR JUST, LIKE, SHITFACED AND GIGGLING ALL THROUGH THIS PART?  How does anyone write this and actually think it’s a good idea?

He finally does end up running on solid ground again, so hopefully the desire to smash my head against a wall will lessen.

He ends up surrounded by Grievers but gets past one of them with…a fake-out.  Fake left, run right, slip past.  These monsters are being defeated with Mario moves and stuff I learned in under-8 soccer camp.

Minho shows up again, and he saw the fake-out move and it gave him an idea, because I guess even though these guys have tried everything they just never thought to try fucking dodging.  Minho leads them on a merry chase through the maze until they get to a giant cliff, which is apparently “the” cliff that everyone has been using as a threat so far in the book.

They simply stand in front of the cliff and dive out of the way at the last second as all four Grievers roll right over the edge like they’re lemmings being shoved over by Disney employees.

Okay, the similes in this book aren’t as bad as City of Bones, but apparently they’re still getting to me.  I sincerely apologize for all the “like”s in this post.

But still.  How disgustingly simple was that?  These kids have been here two years and they haven’t figured out how to fight monsters that are, by Minho’s own admission, dumb as dirt?  Yes, they’re big and scary and have spikes, but you know what?  MANKIND AS A SPECIES IS THE TOP HUNTER BECAUSE OF HOW FUCKING SMART WE ARE.  THAT IS OUR BIGGEST EVOLUTIONARY ADVANTAGE.  THAT IS THE ENTIRE REASON WE RULE THE PLANET RIGHT NOW AND BEASTS ARE ALL OUR BITCHES.  YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE IS BIG AND SCARY AND ALSO NOT A THREAT TO OUR SPECIES?  LIONS AND TIGERS AND BEARS, OH MY!  BECAUSE OUR BRAINS ARE BETTER THAN EVERYTHING ELSE, EVER.

There is no way in hell that a bunch of beasts this stupid would stand up to a group of humans for two years.  No, I don’t care if they are teenagers.  Have you met any teenagers lately?  Fucking smart, that’s what they are.  The only thing teenagers are dumber than is other, older humans, not slugs that run themselves off cliffs!