The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

The 5th Wave

Picture courtesy of Goodreads

Author: Rick Yancey
Series: The Fifth Wave #1
Release Date: May 7th, 2013
Pages: 480
Review by: Tessa




The 1st Wave: Light's Out
The 2nd Wave: Surf's Up
The 3rd Wave: Pestlience
The 4th Wave: Silencer
The 5th Wave.........

"But if I'm it, the last of my kind, the last page of human history, like hell I'm going to let the story end this way. I may be the last one, but I am the one still standing. I am the one turning to face the faceless hunter in the woods on an abandoned highway. I am the one not running but facing. Because if I am the last one, then I am humanity. And if this is humanity's last war, then I am the battlefield."

The aliens have come, but not in peace. The only thing that will be in pieces is the human race. 

Cassie has survived the first four waves. She is supposedly a member of the "lucky" humans who were not exterminated but the aliens....yet. Cassie knows there will be a 5th wave, and that the odds of her surviving it again are not very high. But Cassie made a promise, and nobody, not even ET's revenge-seeking family, will stop her from fulfilling it.



Warning: There are multiple perspectives in this book. I know I did not make that obvious in the summary, but I am trying to avoid spoilers. 

The 5th Wave is my favorite sci-fi/alien/dystopian/ so far! This type of book has the tendency to be over-done and cliche, but this book was practically perfection!

I loved the characters (especially Cassie). Cassie is officially in my top five favorite main characters of all time. She was such a strong character, but she was not too perfect. Her flaws balanced her awesomeness. She's headstrong, sarcastic, and super kick-butt! I really liked how much of a balanced character she was too. One of my major bookish pet peeves in the "special snowflake syndrome." This is when the main character is perfect in every way-- they are extraordinarily pretty, insanely intelligent, athletic, funny, and their life ends up being perfect in the end. (If you need an example, see my review of Biggest Flirts by Jennifer Echols. There is a whole rant about these types of characters.)

I adored all of the other characters too. Since the perspectives flowed together seamlessly, I could always tell whose perspective I was reading from. Each storyline was given equal attention and I was fully invested in all of them.

As for the plot, it was confusing, but in a good way. This is absolutely one of those books that will keep you up at night thinking about the what ifs of life. What if I was Cassie? What if I had the choice to kill or be killed? (Honestly, I would have probably died in the first wave for some lame reason like being stuck in an elevator and suffocating or something like that. Nothing heroic, but a girl can dream, right?) The story is structured with different points of view and they just add to the extraordinary architecture of the plot. But let me tell you, I NEVER SAW IT COMING! I created all of these theories in my mind of what would happen and I thought I had EVERYTHING planned out, but Yancey managed to trick me! Believe me, that is extremely difficult to achieve considering the amount of books that I read.

Although the whole book was amazing, it was the ending that really got to me.

THERE WERE SO MANY QUESTIONS LEFT UNKNOWN!

To me, that is the true sign of an amazing book-- when I cannot sleep at night because I am thinking about Cassie, Evan, and the aliens. The questions that I have for the next book are seamingly infinite.

If you love stories about aliens, the apocalypse, survival, love, war, action, or if you just like reading in general, I highly recommend The 5th Wave.

Did you read The 5th Wave? Did you like it? Are you a fan of post-apocalyptic or alien books?