I have been wanting to dive into this book since last year and have finally gotten around to it. The 5th Wave was recommended to me through Barnes and Noble because I liked dystopian adventure type books like Divergent, Hunger Games, and The Maze Runner. I didn't do a lot of research, or read a lot of reviews on this before I read it, and I'm glad I didn't. I like to go into books not knowing a whole lot, I like to be surprised with my reading and I don't want any spoilers, so I'm going to discuss the book without giving everything away so you can enjoy it as much as I did. It was different than I thought it would be, and I think that made me love it even more.
The beginning of the story kind of reminds me of The Walking Dead. The main character Cassie is all alone, living in a tent in the woods of Ohio. She walks during the day searching for food, and hides in her tent at night so "the Others" won't find her. The roads are abandoned, and so are all the stores and shops which have all been looted. She's a lone survivor of The Waves and isn't sure how many other survivors are left, all she knows is she can't trust anyone. The Waves were brought on by aliens. They invaded Earth and have been slowing killing off the human race wave by wave. These aren't the little green martians, or tall skinny aliens with giant eyeballs, they look just like you and me. You can't tell an alien from a regular person, which is why no one can be trusted.
Let's break down the waves. During the 1st Wave, all things electronic stopped working. All cell phones, computers, and electricity stopped at once. Same goes for cars and planes which all just died mid drive and mid flight, causing pile ups and planes crashing down from the sky. During the 2nd Wave, all coastal cities on every continent were wiped out during a giant tsunami. During the 3rd Wave there was a plague that slowly began infecting the human race and killing them off. It didn't effect everyone though, some people didn't get it at all and some people got it and then were able to recover, but only a slight few. The 4th Wave, which the world is currently in, brought along the Silencers. The Silencers are The Others who are out killing off the survivors of the 3rd Wave. They hide on top of buildings, in the woods, and wherever else they can think of and basically are sniping out any wandering survivors.
The 5th Wave was a fun, easy read. It had a lot of different Parts and short chapters which I loved. Another thing I liked about the writing style, was that we got to read from different character's point's of view with each new Part. Sometimes I enjoy reading different point's of view, but depending on how it's written it can be really confusing or it doesn't flow well. Rick Yancey did a fantastic job with each transition. They flowed really well because instead of switching every other chapter, we got whole Parts with multiple chapters for each character and their point of view. This really hooks the reader in, and makes you understand the waves and the new world much better, but you also get invested with each character. I really enjoyed the characters and their stories and development. Of course there were characters and Parts that I enjoyed more than others, but I loved getting to read through different eyes and experiencing all their different journey's. Yancey literally gave life to each character, and you could tell which character was who just by their attitude and tone with each changing Part.
I highly, highly recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of dystopian, action and adventure, or sci-fi/fantasy books. It's a page turner and flows really well. It didn't go through any ruts where it got slow or boring. The story advanced smoothly, and each part progressed at a perfect pace. The second book in the series is called The Infinite Sea and it comes out on September 16. I cannot wait and definitely will be purchasing it. This series is definitely going to be a competitor with The Hunger Games, Divergent, and The Maze Runner. There's already a movie in the works for The 5th Wave, set to come out in 2016, starring Chloe Moretz as Cassie.
I hope you enjoyed today's review and are enjoying my Beauty and The Books series. Reading is one of my favorite things to do, and I look forward to bringing you more book related posts. Let me know in the comments below if you've read The 5th Wave and what your thoughts were on it!
xoxo,
Casey
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