REVIEW: The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

Summary: 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.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Overall: This was a fun read, but it’s something you have to be in the mood to read or else you’re going to do what I did and procrastinate. Maybe not for everyone, but you should definitely give it a go before you automatically veto it because aliens. Yancey is an amazing storyteller.

Thoughts: I really enjoyed this book, but it took awhile to get into. Admittedly, I put it down for a few months before picking it back up again. The story is very character driven. It kinda has to be since the whole alien invasion isn’t a new idea, thought I did like Yancey’s take it.

Cassie is a strong female character with her mind set on completing her goal: Rescuing her little brother, Sam, from the aliens. She runs into a couple of obstacles and setbacks along the way. The two most notable being her fear of the new world and the Silencer (an alien sniper) who shoots her in the leg. Her fear makes her put off her self assigned mission for a couple of weeks. In those weeks, she describes herself as strong during the day and terrified at night, which was elaborated on when she runs into the Crucifix Soldier on a supply run and when she curls up with her M16 at night, jumping at every little sound.

We also get to see the Cassie before the invasion. The little flashbacks delved deep into her character and caught us up on how she got to where she was. Pre-invasion Cassie is definitely different from Post-invasion Cassie. I like Post Cassie, she’s badass and does what has to be done. Most times.

Next up is Evan Walker, the Silencer on the side of humanity. Or at the very least on Cassie’s side. Raised as a farm boy before his Awakening (when his alien consciousness overpowered the human part), Evan rescues Cassie from a snow storm and from dying of an infection. Even though he’s the one who shot her. Yeah, he basically uses her wound to keep her with him for as long as possible, but eventually gains her trust once she discovers his true nature.

Then we get to Ben and his adventures on a military base run by aliens. It takes Ben and his team a long time to figure out that their superiors are aliens and that they’re being trained to take out other humans. Literally they’re right in the middle of their first mission. I mean they’re only using a shit ton of alien tech no one should know how to use, but somehow have intimate knowledge on the workings of everything. Granted it took me a little while to figure it out, but I tend to ignore the obvious when I’m reading. More fun that way.