The 5th Wave (The Fifth Wave #1) - Rick Yancey

The 5th Wave was easily one of most anticipated books of 2013. Penguin seriously caught my interest with their insanely fantastic advertising campaign for this book. After several Goodreads members compared this to The Hunger Games, I knew I had to read this. I was going to go to the library to pick up The 5th Wave which I had on hold when the UPS delivered an ARC of the book to my house. I didn't expect Penguin to send me an ARC and it was such a pleasant surprise.

Truthfully, I didn't expect The 5th Wave to take the direction it did. Even though I had read the description and countless reviews, The 5th Wave still completely surprised me. Rick Yancey created a completely original spin on the classic alien invasion tale. I have never read a book quite like The 5th Wave. I didn't think any author could surprise me anymore, to my surprise Rick Yancey proved me wrong.

Cassie is the kick-ass protagonist of The 5th Wave. For the most part, I really liked Cassie and I enjoyed reading from her point of view. I love Cassie's attitude and humor which added some comic relief to this dark sci-fi book. Cassie's determination and dedication towards finding her little brother Sammy. The only negative thing I need to comment regarding Cassie, is her relationship with Evan.

Alot of reviewers seemed to like Evan and his relationship with Cassie. Truthfully for most of the book I found Evan to be a creepy stalker who lacked chemistry with Cassie. Evan undresses and bathes Cassie, he watches her sleep, and is constantly watching her. Doesn't this strike you as creepy and odd? Later on in the book, I started to like him more but I still couldn't get over his strange demeanor.

The romance in The 5th Wave isn't done particularly well and it comes across as superficial. I didn't really believe Cassie and Ben had any chemistry for most of the book. Their romance was extremely fake and it seemed like Cassie and Ben instantly fell in love. The way Cassie spoke about Ben was extremely cheesy and way too melodramatic. Seriously? Thankfully this book didn't have a love triangle but I have a bad feeling that book #2 will feature a love triangle.

The 5th Wave alternates from the POV of a few characters, my favorite POV was definitely Cassie. I really enjoyed the multiple POVs and how Rick Yancey connected their stories into one. Alot of reviewers said that they weren't a fan of Sammy's point-of-view, I actually really enjoyed reading from his POV. Some commented that his POV was repetitive and badly written, but I think Yancey perfectly captured how a little kid would react to an alien invasion.

The 5th Wave definitely started with a bang but the plot definitely became a bit sluggish after the first couple chapters. Luckily Rick Yancey threw in a few plot twists that perked my interest and kept me turning the pages. Keep in mind that The 5th Wave is more focused on humanity than the Others, which are The 5th Wave's aliens. This book is extremely intense and that ending of The 5th Wave was simply epic. I can't believe that the next book comes out in August 2014. I need book #2 immediately, I really hope it's not called The 6th Wave because that would be so cliche.

Is The 5th Wave the next Hunger Games? The 5th Wave could definitely be the next big YA book! I am pretty excited by the fact that Sony has the movie rights because this could be an epic film. I'd highly recommend this book to fans of Sci-Fi books like The Host, and The Knife Of Never Letting Go. The 5th Wave definitely deserves the hype it's receiving!

This book has been just sitting on my bookshelf for a long time while I was debating whether or not to read it. The synopsis was intriguing. The synopsis was killer especially this part: "To give up or to get up." The cover of the 5th Wave is clever, matched with the setting, perfectly colored, and beautiful.

The 5th Wave was a whopping five hundredish pages book. It's actually four hundred forty-seven. Still a lot of pages, though. Many people wouldn't bother reading this book because of the thickness of the 5th Wave. The author could have cut a hundred pages from the book. A little more editing and cutting please. And cutting shouldn't involve a lot a trees.

The 5th Wave in general was entertaining and delightful and perfectly paced. The switching POVs made the 5th Wave even more exciting. The 5th Wave's genres are Young Adult, Romance, Dystopian, Science Fiction, Extraterrestrial, and Supernatural. (That's a lot of genres). The 5th Wave was easy to understand yet also difficult for an outsider.

1st Wave: an electromagnetic pulse
2nd Wave: a giant metal slab that hit the earth
3rd Wave: bird flu
4th Wave: Silencers
5th Wave: unknown

The 5th Wave has many theories of what it is. It may be soldiers. It may be something else.

The plot was confusing at first. It gets easier to understand over time. Hopefully the second book in The 5th Wave will not be like the first book. I felt the need to flip back to the beginning to understand the plot. A little recap between events may be helpful. Or a little hint that can link the memory to mind.

The writing. Easy to understand and flows well. Not the worse I have seen before. It is certainly not the best of all the books I have read. Rick Riordan could have done a better job.

The POVs. You have to name the POVs. Whose is whose. Readers can become very confused by all that unnamed POVs. I rarely become confused with POVs. In the 5th Wave, it was a new story. I was confused every time the POVs swap. Every character's beginning felt the same to me. It was hard to hear their individual voices.

Characters:

Cassie for Cassiopeia... Not for Cassandra. Cassiopeia, the legend. The upside down queen on the night sky. Punished by a certain god for her (Cassiopeia) flaws/mistakes. Cassie carries a M16 gun and is Katniss Everdeen in a worn down, bleak, uncertain future. She's looking for her brother Sammy. She made a promise and she wants to fulfill it. Cassie is an interesting character who is has defiance in her eyes. She refuse to believe that anything is impossible. Her determination and bravery and strength will lead her to where she is at the end of the 5th Wave.

Evan Walker... A Silencer. One of the 4th Wave. He's been targeting Cassie for a while. Interestingly enough, Evan didn't shoot Cassie. He's one of those aliens. Evan Walker is a rebel to his people. He doesn't do what he is suppose to do. He helps Cassie find her brother. He helps Cassie get better and protects her too.

Ben... A soldier. He is another fellow rebel, although Evan and Ben never met till the end of the book. He is a major character in The 5th Wave.

Sam... Cassie's brother. I love how innocent and charming he was at the beginning of the book. Let's hope that The 5th Wave wouldn't go Hunger Games. After all, in the Hunger Games Trilogy, Katniss Everdeen's sister dies.

Rating of the 5th Wave: four out of five. Should be three, but I feel good today.

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It did not take me long to finish The 5th wave at all, i really did enjoy the book but there was a few things that bugged me and it was the use of swear words all the time, Don't get me wrong i swear all the time more then i should but when i am reading a book it bugs me. I really hope there will be a 2nd book cause the ending kinda leaves you a little confused. What i did like about this book was it suppressed you like when you think you have figured it out what was going on and then twisted it to where you are like what? When? How?

This book kinda reminds me of The host but with The hungers games and The tv show falling skies all twisted in one.

This post-apocalyptic novel takes places in Dayton, Ohio following a wave of alien invasions that has devastated the Earth’s population (more than 99% of the population was wiped out before the story begins – dramatic backstory!).

Our central protagonist is sixteen-year-old Cassie Sullivan (short for Cassiopeia). She lost her mother during the 3rd wave, her father during the 4th wave, and her five-year-old brother Sammy went missing during the 5th wave. The story begins with Cassie searching for her brother.

The novel has multi points of view. The first and main narrator is Cassie. After being shot by an unknown sniper Cassie is being nursed back to health on a remote farmhouse by a mysterious young man, Evan Walker, whose girlfriend and family were killed during the 3rd wave. Cassie and Evan develop a relationship, but Cassie’s priority is to find her brother. Evan wants to help but she questions whether she can trust him.

The second first-person-perspective is from Ben Parrish, Cassie’s former high school crush, the star football player that didn’t even know she existed. Ben is at Camp Haven, a military base where a group of children and teenagers are training for the war against the aliens. He is part of Squad 53, they all have names like Zombie (Ben’s name), Ringer, Dumbo, Teacup, Tank, Flintstone, Oompa and Nugget.

It is inevitable that the two groups will cross paths. But will they be able to work together to survive?

In January this year a film adaptation directed by J Blakeson was released starring Chloë Grace Moretz, Nick Robinson, Ron Livingston, Maggie Siff, and Liev Schreiber.

I honestly had such high hopes for this book. I mean I love good science fiction; Doctor Who, Star Wars, and Ender’s Game are just a few. So when I heard the premise – a girl fighting to survive aliens called “Others” who have managed to wipe out almost all of humanity without setting foot on Earth – I literally went crazy. I was super-excited to read it. And for the first half of the book, I genuinely enjoyed it. I loved the references to aliens in pop culture and the thrilling action. Cassie felt like a great narrator, she was sarcastic at the right moments, but also serious in telling her story. She was pretty heroic but wasn’t boastful about it; she was honestly just a normal but headstrong teenage girl. But this, my friends, is where everything went wrong. Let me ask you a question: when being shot at by an alien-infested sniper, what are the chances that you’re going to be rescued by an amazingly hot boy who seems to be perfect and caring? If you answered slim to none, you actually have some logic. After Cassie was rescued by this amazingly hot guy, she was still unconscious but he UNDRESSES and BATHES her in her sleep. Creepy much? And when she wakes up, he caters to her every need. Somehow they get into an argument, which I can’t remember what it was even over, but they go from “I hate you” to “I love you so much” in five minutes. And this is how Cassie turns into a stupid, teen angst-y narrator who falls for the boy who “kisses her eyelashes” (no crap, a legit quote from the book) despite the fact that she hated him just a day ago. And you think you can classify this as science fiction? More like stereotypical young adult “romance” (also known as instalove) to me.