The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

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The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey


                Is this survival? Living alone? Trusting no one? Trying to keep an impossible promise? Cassie is alone in the woods trying to get back to her brother. She lived through the first wave when the Others took the power away. She survived the second wave when the Earth shook and a wave took out billions of people. The third wave, the pestilence, took her mother but she still had her dad and Sammie. Now after the 4th wave, she is alone. Dad is dead. Sammie is with them. Now she fights to survive and make it to Sammie before the next wave comes.
                Well color me surprised! I don’t know what I was expecting when I first heard about this book but it wasn’t this. I really enjoyed this novel. It was eerie, suspenseful, and really successfully executed. Let’s start with the setting. Yancey did an amazing job with creating this world where you can trust absolutely no one, there is a mothership circling the Earth and the Others are here slowly taking away our humanity while exterminating humans. I was swept away with the tide of emotions that flowed through these pages. It felt real. It felt believable. It seemed horrifying.
                Then there were the main characters. Again, another slow clap for Rick Yancey here, I fell for Cassie and fell hard. She just had the right amount of fear, concern, angst and strength. This is an impossible situation and I could empathize with her through most of her emotions (there is a flaw but I’ll get to that later).  Then there is Zombie who was on the other end of the spectrum but just as plausible and realistic as Cassie. The changing of their narratives throughout the novel was genius. It kept me on my toes. It kept me questioning everything. This change would not have been successful if either of these characters were lacking in depth. Thankfully they weren’t. Then there is Sammie. Oh little Sammie. If you can throw a little kid in the mix and then characters that genuinely care for the little kid and are fighting for them, it would be hard to get me to not root for them. It was simply done well.
                Throughout this novel the intensity was there, the suspense was palpable and the tone was just shy of total chaos and destruction. I flew through the pages of this novel because I was so swept up in this story. So many questions from the very beginning and the slow but timely unfolding of answers. Yancey got me with an “Aha” moment that I can’t believe I didn’t see coming but actually enjoyed. I did have one issue and it was some of Cassie’s crazy decisions when it came to events going on. It all worked out in the end but I had some serious face-palm moments that I just had to shake my head and press through.

                I can’t take much away from The 5th Wave. This was a really enjoyable, fun, suspenseful read. I am giving this 4.5 out of 5 stars. It was an extremely original take on an alien attack. If you like science fiction give it a shot. It is part of a series that hasn’t finished yet. While part of me wants to grab this by the horns and jump into the next one, I think I am going to wait until the last book comes out. This ending was pretty satisfying so I’ll see. 

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