The 5th Wave Review

TITLE The 5th Wave (The 5th Wave #1)
AUTHOR Rick Yancey
PUBLICATION May 7th 2013 by Putnam Juvenile
READ May 07 to 08, 2013
SOURCE Purchased

The Passage meets Ender’s Game in an epic new series from award-winning author Rick Yancey.

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.

What a refreshing read this was! I haven’t been having the best of luck with dystopian/post apocalyptic stories lately so I was a bit hesitant going into The 5th Wave but that hesitation proved to be useless and I enjoyed this one very much. It brought forth wonderful world building, strong characters and an intense plot that moved at a break neck pace.

What tops my list of things I liked in this novel is the world building. So often I go into a post apocalyptic novel and am left with so many questions as to how the world came to be in the situation that it was. That’s so not the case here. I had a clear picture of the strife brought down on the world and I truly felt the desperation of the people living through it. It’s pretty dark and creepy in that it seems as if it is something that could truly happen. It’s always frightened me to think that there are aliens out there and the thought of them one day coming to Earth is... just I can’t even. Yancey’s aliens (The Others) are super intelligent and have studied the human race for so many years that they are constantly able to be one step ahead. The Others tactics were gruesome and felt completely realistic to me (you know in a far-fetched way... I hope...)

As we got to experience these waves through different people we came to see all sides of the war that was waged with Earth and that was something that I definitely appreciated. My favorite POV had to be Cassie, though I admit that this was much stronger in the beginning than it was in the end. Quickly upon meeting her as she is out on her own trying to figure out what the hell to do I came to like her. She had adapted to this tough world really well and wasn’t afraid to do what she had to do. We see her deal with the worst of the worst and through flashbacks we come to know just how much her character has changed since The Arrival. I do wish that she had maintained some of this strength-on-her-own-against-the-odds personality once she met her love interest because we do start to see that strength waver.

I can’t say that I truly connected to the romance as much as I would have liked but I don’t necessarily think I was supposed to. Throughout the novel there is a level of distrust between Evan and Cassie which is brought upon by The Arrival and how The Others got into the humans heads and left them with no one to trust. So all along I never really felt that I knew Evan’s intentions and never fell for him as much as I could have. He was sweet and helped Cassie so much, but I always felt like there was an ulterior motive there. I also didn’t like how Cassie threw her instincts to the side when in the beginning of the novel she constantly stressed just how important following your instincts in the new world was. But I guess that’s what love does, it clouds your judgment, right?

The story moves at a quick pace and there were definitely no lulls that had me yawning. I needed to find out exactly what was going on and if Cassie would make it to where she was going so that kept me turning the pages. We do get another perspective of a soldier who is recruited to fight in the war in the form of Zombie. I liked him and his determination quite a bit and I wanted to see him survive. The two POV’s are brought together really well even though the strings tying them together are completely convenient but I was able to not let that bother me and just go along for the ride. This is a strong start to a series that I think will be a huge hit, but you already know that from the mass of 5 star reviews on Goodreads, right? I don’t think this is one to be missed and I can’t wait to see where the story heads in the next installment.