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

I’m going to try to give away as little as possible of the plot in this review, because I honestly feel that going into this book knowing essentially nothing about it is the way to go. It made each reveal thrilling and satisfying, and made it impossible to stop turning pages. It’s been a while since a book has led me to stay up way past my bedtime, because I simply could not put it down. But this book was one of those books that reminded me how much I love reading, and how much I love the sci-fi genre in particular. This was the alien apocalypse book I never knew I always wanted.

So let’s get into it. The 5th Wave follows two primary points of view, Cassie and another guy whom I will let you discover as you read (he is not, as the blurb suggests, Evan Walker — although Evan does get one short POV section, as does one other character). Both eighteen-year-old protagonists have survived the atrocities of the first four waves of invasion, and both have suffered heavy losses. Their stories run parallel for most of the book, with neither of them ever being aware of the other’s existence (either pre- or post-invasion), but there are common threads in each of their narratives that keep the stakes climbing for both of them. It’s brilliantly executed, and kept the tension ratcheting up throughout the story.

Each of the characters in The 5th Wave was a fully-realized person. You can see how Cassie progressed from normal high school senior to semi-automatic-toting survivalist, and the same is true for all the main characters, from children to teens to adults to aliens. I felt like I knew these people, and it made me that much more invested in their struggle for survival against staggering odds.

I loved – loved – the logic of the waves of invasion. Both the order of events and the execution were — with one minor exception — flawless. (I took issue with the birds. I have questions about the birds. But the rest of it is so well done that I don’t really care.) The aliens took a sculptor’s approach to the eradication of humanity, removing massive chunks at the start, then pulling out their fine tools to whittle down the survivors. It was terrible, but fantastic at the same time.

And as far as the story itself, it was a constant adrenaline surge from beginning to end. Rick Yancey didn’t pull any punches. Each loss hurt, and victories came at a price. There were no characters who felt safe, no challenges I was sure could be surmounted. It’s one of the reasons this book is so hard to put down — you just don’t know if they’re going to make it. In a story where 97% of the human race is dead at the beginning, survival and success are very much not guaranteed.

Overall, The 5th Wave was a thoroughly entertaining roller coaster of a book that kept me up all hours of the night. The premise is fantastic, the characters felt real, and the twists and turns of the plot kept me constantly on my toes. I loved it.

What I Loved:

The strength of this book is the authentic way the main characters deal with the horror of seeing most of the world's population decimated and with the ongoing struggle, not just to survive, but to daily decide that surviving is still worth it. I especially enjoyed Cassie and found her gritty, honest narration very compelling.

The setting is perfectly rendered as well. I could see events unfolding in an almost cinematic landscape. Sensory details are included, so reading each scene was like being inside each scene, something readers who enjoy action movies or role playing video games should appreciate.

The stakes are high enough to keep the reader turning the pages. I found it impossible to figure out exactly how the characters would reach their goals, but I was fully invested in seeing it happen.

What Left Me Wanting More:

The worldbuilding is well done for the most part. I did see a few inconsistencies that may have been solved with a better explanation from a character or two, and the actual concept of the 5th wave, while an engrossing existential examination of the value of human life and what it means to remain human, felt somewhat anticlimactic, not to mention inefficient on the part of the superior alien life forms.

I also had issues with the romance between Cassie and her "rescuer." There is a scene, before anyone has declared romantic feelings (not that a declaration as such would change my view on this scene), when the boy kisses Cassie. She immediately pulls away and tells him not to kiss her. He ignores her and kisses her again. She again responds with "kiss me again and I will kick you in the balls." The boy once more ignores Cassie's wishes and kisses her, and this time, Cassie (a survivalist of the first order who has huge trust issues and not a small dose of PTSD) accepts it, and the reader is led to believe that this was romantic.

That is not romantic. That is ignoring the girl's clearly stated wishes, smashing through her boundaries and disregarding her autonomy as a person, and it is disrespectful and wrong. I am going to allow my sons to read this book, but first we are going to have a discussion about consent and boundaries, and about how in this book, those two issues are completely disregarded.

Finally, while the split narration (we actually end up following four characters' POVs) worked for me in most cases, there were times when Cassie would think something another character knew instead of her. And there were many times when the split POV felt like a device to deliberately keep the reader in the dark for as long as possible.

Final Verdict:

A gritty, compelling narrative and a high stakes plot will keep fans of post-apocalyptic themes quickly turning the pages.

What I loved:
There’s no doubt in my mind that most people are going to be captivated with The 5th Wave. It’s engaging, features a witty protagonist, mystery, the right amount of anticipation and a romantic story line.

Yancey sets up the world perfectly and there’s little fault to be found there. The narration is introduced by Cassie, who tells the reader of her life before the aliens came and the 4 waves that subsequently wiped out most of the human population. Her story, like the many others shown later, is not a happy one. She’s suffered the death of both of her parents and the separation from her 6 year old brother, Sam. I quite enjoyed her as a main character and found her humorous despite her grim situation. Her fierce determination to save her brother from the unknown (to her, at least) horrors built just the right amount of anticipation to keep me turning page after page.

One thing I didn’t expect was the multiple narrations: The Silencer, Zombie and Sam (though, he only narrates once, I believe). I’m surprised that I actually liked this style after a few reviews did mention it not working so well for them. I can definitely see it throwing readers off, but I thought it was pretty clever in the beginning. The way it switches back and forth, implanted a certain amount of doubt to the point where I there were times where I wasn’t sure who was actually human or alien.

What left me wanting more:
Unfortunately, I needed more from the romance than what it yielded. I would have loved to see Cassie and the love interest spend a little more time together before declaring their love for one another. Instead, I found their relationship to be very rushed and awkward, resembling an Edward Cullen Complex.

Once he enters the story, the novel's progression slows down a bit. It was such a strange turn of events. One minute there’s death, carnage and a struggle for survival and the next minute Cassie’s on this farm with a guy who resembles Clark Kent from Smallville and he’s baking her bread. This is also that part where the narrative changes really started to become jarring because we also were keeping track of Zombie (a nickname for the character in the novel). Every time we were in his point of view, I felt like I was in the midst of playing Call of Duty.

There was also the 5th wave itself that turned out be be much more anticlimactic that I had hoped given the build-up throughout the entire novel. Still, these issues are indicative of a more personal preference and other readers probably won't be as bothered as I was.

My final verdict: The 5th Wave is definitely a page-turner and has plenty to offer a reader who enjoys science fiction. Even though the romance fell flat and the plot’s logical inconsistencies kept me from dishing out all my stars, it was still an enjoyable read and I look forward to reading the sequel.

I’ve always been on the fence about whether or not I’d like aliens to visit Earth. After reading Rick Yancey’s “The 5th Wave,” I can solidly say no. Ain’t nobody got time for no close encounters of the third kind.

“The 5th Wave” is set in a not-too-distant future in which aliens have come to Earth. Unfortunately, they’ve decided to wipe out humanity. They do so in waves, with each wave taking out more and more people through horrors such as killer plagues and disastrous tsunamis. The book centers around Cassie, a high school student (or she would be if there was high school anymore), and the people who are connected to her life in various ways as they try to find relative safety in a world that is completely unsafe for humans. All are expecting another alien attack that will destroy the last hangers-on of humanity, which they call the fifth wave.

Despite this being a pretty unrealistic occurrence, Yancey portrays his characters’ feelings about the invasion in a very realistic way. There is no fanfare in which characters think, ‘Yeah! We’re going to take these guys out despite the fact they’ve already killed 99.99999% of all people!’ Instead, they all have a pretty clear idea that they will eventually die, they just have to stay alive as long as they possibly can. They all know their luck of surviving this long is bound to run out. Even though this is a pretty dark realization, I liked it. I felt like this would be the mindset of any person left in as bleak a situation as this, and I bonded with the characters due to their realistic thoughts on their circumstances.

What I like about Yancey’s book is that he essentially tells you very early on what the fifth wave is going to be, but keeps you guessing as to whether or not he was psyching us out and trying to distract us in order to blindside us with something completely unseen. The result is an impending sense of doom that you and the characters are feeling simultaneously. When that fifth wave finally starts to go down, there’s satisfaction in knowing you were right all along, yet dread in the pit of your stomach when ways to escape the fifth wave seem nonexistent. All of Yancey’s writing gives you those feelings of contradictory emotions, wanting Cassie to stay alive, yet eagerly anticipating the fifth wave, and yearning to know exactly what it is that will make the human race say bye-bye.

Not only was this an entertaining and emotionally interactive read, but I also know how to prepare if any of this intergalactic insanity goes down.

All I can say is, "OMG." This book had me on the edge of my seat. Think Aliens meets Ender's Game. In this case the kids are the ones being geared to be the killers.

There is so much to love about this book. It's totally unlike most recent dystopian books out there. It has suspense, mystery(we never do see the aliens which is creepy), hints of romance, chills, and edge of the seat action.

The story is told in through the eyes of different characters. There's Cassie who crushes big time on Ben and later finds herself a sole survivor. Ben, the guy who's main interests included sports, cars, and girls. Only later he finds himself being groomed for something that tests not only his strength but humanity as well. The Silencer who battles between two sides: the alien and human one.

I loved these characters. The relationship between Cassie and Ethan has an alien Romeo and Juliet appeal. It's bittersweet and very tragic. Cassie's character could very easily come across as very snarky but no, she's wounded but also a survivor. She refuses to give up especially after her younger brother is taken.

The world building is subtle at first then builds until the final reveal. This world is haunting and very frightening.

There's some chilly lines throughout this novel. One that stuck out had to be Cassie's remark that the media didn't prepare us for the aliens with all the Star Trek movies as the real aliens were so not ET. No, we never see them and that alone is scary.

I couldn't put this book down! A total must read!

What I Loved:
The 5th Wave hooked me right from the start. What really sets this book apart from the bulk of young adult fiction is the air of hopelessness that permeates this post-alien attack vision of Cincinnati. Cassie is a hard heroine, determined to survive for as long as she can, afraid she might be the last actual human alive. The 1st wave of the alien attack was an EMP, knocking out all technology in an instant. The 2nd wave stirred the oceans and killed those on the coast. The 3rd wave was a plague, carried by birds, that killed all but a few naturally immune or able to fight off the infection. The 4th wave consisted of the Silencers, sleeper agent aliens within human bodies. At this point, 7 billion people are dead, and the enemy could be anyone.

Too often, apocalypses in young adult fiction don't really wreak all that much destruction. Humanity seems to have a serious fighting chance, but Yancey's world is suitably bleak enough to please me. With the 5th wave feared and anticipated every moment, humanity hardly seems to have a chance in hell of surviving. I love how high the stakes are in this book, and that Yancey doesn't pull punches. The 5th Wave is dark and intense.

As the novel opens and we meet Cassie, we learn her rules for living, the first of which is to shoot anyone else she meets on sight. She knows that aliens are walking around in human guise, because she saw them murder her father, shortly after her brother, Sammy, and the other children were rescued by soldiers. As such, Cassie trusts no one. Cassie will kill to protect herself, without waiting to find out if the other person is human or alien, because there's no way to know, and she has to stay alive to find Sammy. It's not just Cassie, though. Every single surviving person in this world has blood on their hands. No one comes through these experiences innocent, and that is my favorite aspect of the novel.

What Left Me Wanting More:
Yancey's writing is beautiful too, complex and in no way talking down to the audience. He is even at turns poetic. This would be one of the rare YA books I would recommend to adults who normally turn up their noses at books for teens, because I think the writing and darkness of the subject matter will hold appeal for adult readers as well, even snobby ones.

However, much as I love the concept and the writing itself, Yancey's use of perspectives didn't really work for me. I had three main concerns with his use of multiple points of view. First, I had trouble discerning Cassie's narration from Zombie's, and was really thrown when the POV switched, even going so far as to wonder if Cassie was a boy all along and I'd missed something. I simply could not tell their voices apart except by seeing where they were or a gender reference. Second, there were two perspectives that appeared only once, one of which spoils what could have been an epic plot twist. Third, the other perspective that appears a single time is in third person when the rest are in first. There seemed little reason for these choices.

Even though Cassie and Zombie were written in first person, I also failed to really connect with them. In Zombie's case, I suspect this was because he sounded like Cassie to me, so didn't really become his own person in my head. Cassie, though, I was well-disposed to like, and was bonding to in the beginning. Unfortunately, she stopped acting like the Cassie of the outset and embarked on an instalove romance. To be fair, the romance was not instalove from her side, but she pursued the relationship as well, and the whole thing made me roll my eyes. The one plus I will give the romance in this book is that I'm not entirely sure who Yancey wants Cassie to end up with in the end.

The Final Verdict:
Overall, I very much enjoyed The 5th Wave and will be eagerly anticipating the sequel. Readers who enjoy dark, action-packed novels will want to pick this one up, as will those who liked The Host or Animorphs, but want something much more intense.