Monday 25 January 2016

Book Review: The 5th Wave


Published May 7, 2013 
Goodreads Summary: The Passage meets The Hunger Games in a gripping new series from Carnegie-shortlisted 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. 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, until Cassie meets Evan Walker. Beguiling and mysterious, Evan may be her only hope for rescuing her brother and even saving herself. Now she must choose: between trust and despair, between defiance and surrender, between life and death. To give up or to get up. Cassie Sullivan gets up. 

The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey is a Young Adult Fantasy and Science Fiction novel. This book has made me think about our world a lot. What if we aren't the only ones in our universe? What if there are "other" living among us? A lot of questions that we can't answer, but we like to think about. And this dystopian novel showed us a world where we can answer some of these questions - although, I do prefer our world where we aren't being hunted down. 


"Do you know how to tell who the enemy is? The guy who's shooting at you - that's how you tell." I love the characters in this book. Ben and Cassie are two very strong people and the different narratives gives you insight on how the world ends from two different places. The 'coincidence' that Ben meets Cassie's brother and that they belong to the same squad gives the story a secure direction because as readers we can be quite certain that they're bound to meet up again. And knowing about Cassie's crush on Ben it's something you expect to become complicated, especially after her meeting Evan. This love triangle might seem a little cliché, but I'm very interested in seeing how it plays out. 


The story is a riveting account of Cassie's new life and her search for her brother while fighting to stay alive. While a lot of Critics believe that it "should do for aliens what Twilight did for vampires", I believe it's a great novel and definitely high on my recommend list. 



I recommend this book to fans of The Hunger Games trilogy and the Divergent series.