The 5th Wave - Rick Yancey

The 5^th Wave – Rick Yancey

I stumbled across The 5^th Wave on one of my daily peruses of good reads, and YouTube videos of book hauls.  After seeing so many reviews, and then hearing this was to become a film starring Chloe Grace Moretz, I just knew I had to pick it up and give it a read. Safe to say I wasn’t disappointed and I am already hooked on the series, with book 2, Infinite Sea, due to arrive tomorrow.

‘After the 1st wave, only darkness remains. After the 2nd, only the lucky escape. And after the 3rd, only the unlucky survive. After the 4th wave, only one rule applies: trust no one.

Now, it’s the dawn of the 5th wave, and on a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs from Them. The beings who only look human, who roam the countryside killing anyone they see. Who have scattered Earth’s last survivors. To stay alone is to stay alive, Cassie believes, until she meets Evan Walker.

Beguiling and mysterious, Evan Walker may be Cassie’s only hope for rescuing her brother—or even saving herself. But Cassie must choose: between trust and despair, between defiance and surrender, between life and death. To give up or to get up.’

This is the first novel I have read by Rick Yancey, and had no expectations when going into it. I have never read a sci fi YA book involving alien invasions or encounters before, and I have to say I am glad this was my first. This has set a marker now to which all other sci fi alien invasion books will be put against, as it was truly brilliant.

I loved Yancey’s writing style and the voice he had with Cassie as the main protagonist, I thoroughly enjoyed the switch in POV’s through the book, from Cassie, Evan, Ben and Sammy. All giving various views of the world and this situation they are all in. It really allowed a greater picture to be drawn throughout, and a better understanding and knowledge of each of the characters. 

The 5^th Wave was a truly suspenseful story, with heartbreak, fear and agony continuously felt through the book. You as a reader didn’t know what was going to happen, who you could trust, you were really with these characters on this ever bumpy and dangerous ride. This was by no means a light hearted book; it was full of action, death, mayhem and despair. The position that some of these young survivors were put into were truly horrific, and even imagining yourself in that situation, how would you cope? Some of these children were as young as 5/6 with no families left, and all alone in this big, scary, dangerous world, it truly is terrifying.

The overall plot to this story was brilliant; I felt Cassie was a great protagonist. When put in this situation she had two options, hide or fight, and I feel she is truly a fighter, a fighter to get to her brother back, to save him and somehow save herself, even when put in some of the most testing situations, she somehow manages to come out of it. I can’t really say too much about the plot, as it would give away too much of the story, that you really need to read to get the full effect. But it truly is testing and yet such amazing writing, that the detail creates this dystopian world, full of destruction and death. I honestly loved this story and the action within it, just thinking about how our world would cope with an alien invasion, and an assortment of waves to eliminate the disease that is, in their eyes, us, human kind.

I really cannot wait to get into the second book in this series called Infinite Sea, I have high hopes that it will be just as brilliant as the first, with so many unanswered questions, and answers I need from how things were left in the final few chapters of The 5^th Wave.

I would honestly recommend this YA, sci fi, dystopian series. I feel this a lot darker than most, which makes it truly unique within this genre category and must read to anyone.

I have given this book a 4 out of 5 star rating.