Murder of Crows discussion

Summary:
Furnace Penitentiary: the world’s most secure prison for young offenders, buried a mile beneath the earth’s surface. Convicted of a murder he didn’t commit, sentenced to life without parole, “new fish” Alex Sawyer knows he has two choices: find a way out, or resign himself to a death behind bars, in the darkness at the bottom of the world. Except in Furnace, death is the least of his worries. Soon Alex discovers that the prison is a place of pure evil, where inhuman creatures in gas masks stalk the corridors at night, where giants in black suits drag screaming inmates into the shadows, where deformed beasts can be heard howling from the blood-drenched tunnels below. And behind everything is the mysterious, all-powerful warden, a man as cruel and dangerous as the devil himself, whose unthinkable acts have consequences that stretch far beyond the walls of the prison.
Together with a bunch of inmates—some innocent kids who have been framed, others cold-blooded killers—Alex plans an escape. But as he starts to uncover the truth about Furnace’s deeper, darker purpose, Alex’s actions grow ever more dangerous, and he must risk everything to expose this nightmare that’s hidden from the eyes of the world.

My thoughts:
This is a great young adult introduction book to horror. I really enjoyed it as an adult and I know I would’ve when I was younger too. It’s a very quick read, not for the lack of pages, but rather that it’s a fast paced book that just keeps you reading all the way through. Along with the horror genre, there’s also (view spoiler)[sci-fi included, which was something I didn’t seem to catch onto in the summary. That being said, I was pleasantly surprised at how the creatures (such as the “wheezers” and “hellhounds”) were carried out. (hide spoiler)]

There were two other books that I kept thinking of when reading this one. That would be The Maze Runner and Holes. The Maze Runner is my top favorite dystopian series, so to bring me back to that series was very pleasant. I would go into detail on how this book reminds me of the two others but I would run out of letters I am able to use, and it would be very boring in my opinion.

I’m very curious as to why only boys are being blamed for violence and why they are the only ones that end up in the Furnace. Is there a particular reason for this that will be explained in the following books, or is it just the way it is and readers are allowed to draw their own conclusions? Because my theory is,(view spoiler)[ if the kids are being used to dig for something that the men in black want, do they not take the girls so they are able to grow up and have more children to put away in the Furnace. Hence why they started framing the boys (they need more strength in numbers). (hide spoiler)]