Skip to main content

The 5th Wave

 

The 5th Wave
Written by Rick Yancey

About 460 pages
Originally published in 2013
Rate 3/5

I'm not typically super into sci-fi, but this book had a really interesting concept. 

One day, an alien space ship appears in the middle of the sky. Suddenly, all the power goes out, tsunamis strike, a pandemic starts, and suddenly the aliens decide to come down and kill people themselves. 

Before the space ship appeared Cassie was a normal teenage girl worrying about normal teenage things, but now she's all alone. She wanders about the world trying to figure out what to do. Holding her younger brother's stuffed animal in her hand, she decides to find him. Ben used to be the coolest boy in the school before the space ship appeared. After his whole family dies, he ends up leading a group of kids into battle with the aliens. Evan stays hidden from the whole invasion at his cozy family farm until he sees Cassie. Sammy wonders if any promise can be kept as he waits for his sister to save him.

My thoughts on The 5th Wave

As I mentioned before, I don't typically go for these types of books, however, when there is a strong female lead you can (normally) count me in. Cassie's character was written pretty well until the last couple of pages. Majority of the story she is focused on staying alive and not trusting anyone. Then  everything that (male character) did to her before is okay once he helps her. Weird. There was also a rapey scene that didn't really get talked about at all. That made me uncomfortable. The romance in this book is not it and I understand it's not a romance book, but that scene was wild.

Having multiple point of views was really fun and interesting. If it was all from Cassie's perspective then I might have gotten bored a lot quicker. There were some interesting twists, but some scenes dragged out for too long. The 5th Wave has a lot of really nice elements to it, but overall it was boring.  Most of the time the characters were traveling and or trying to escape from something. Everything felt like it was out of the characters' control until the end, but that was annoyingly convenient. 

Movie Trailer


Quotes

"How do you rid the Earth of humans? Rid the humans of their humanity." (12)
"I felt that, when it came to God there was a broken promise in there somewhere." (61)
"But love is a weapon they have no answer for. They know how you think, but they can't know what you feel." (373)
"Beneath a sky crowded with a billion stars. I don't care what the stars say about how small we are. One, even the smallest, weakest, most insignificant one matters." (455)

Links

Rick Yancey website
Amazon: The 5th Wave

Labels:

Popular Posts

Love & Olives

Love & Olives Published in 2020 with close to 500 pages Written by: Jenna Evans Welch Rate: 10/10 My summary of Love & Olives : Olive (Liv) Varanakis starts receiving postcards from her father (Nico) who she hasn't heard from in well over nine years. The last time Liv saw Nico, they were talking about finding the lost city of Atlantis, more importantly, how they were going to find the city together -- then he left.  Throughout Love & Olives Liv struggles with a lot of anxiety, especially when she finds out she has to go to Greece to visit her father and help him make a documentary for National Geographic (about the lost city of Atlantis.) Liv makes it to Greece only to discover her father made a whole new life for himself. While in Greece she meets a teenage boy named Theo, who is as obsessed about finding Atlantis as her father is. Liv not only discovers herself but also discovers how history rewrites itself without people realizing it.  My opinion about Love ...
Read more

The Siren

The Siren written by: Kiera Cass Genre(s): fantasy, fiction, and young adult Rate: 9/10 About the book: Kahlen is a young girl who is saved by the ocean after the boat she was on was destroyed. She then becomes a siren and is bound to serve the ocean for 90 years. After she has served her time, she can be set free and live a normal life forgetting about the time she was a siren. However, there are rules to her sentence as a siren and if she breaks them more time will be added. When she finds the love of her life, she breaks a rule. The ocean favors her the most out of all the sirens, so will she get time added or will the ocean set her free? Why I liked the book: The conflict was very well centered through out the whole book, things were added to the conflict that were reasonable making the book more of a page turner. The rules were simple and easy to follow. It gave a different point of view on sirens that I liked a lot, made them seem more human. A great sisterly bond that mad...
Read more

Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place

Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place Published in 1991 close to 290 pages Written by Terry Tempest Williams Rate: 5/10 My summary of Refuge : Terry journals about her family and their trials, specifically her mother's cancer story. During this time, The Great Salt Lake is rising which seemed to be a very important event to Terry. The majority of the story was either about birds (and or the Bear River Migratory Refuge), Terry's family, "Mormon" culture, the Utah government, or the Great Salt Lake rising. My opinion on Refuge : The journalistic element Terry brought into the writing of Refuge found me well (the way she treated the book like her own personal journal.) However, some elements of the story did not sit well with me (maybe I could have misinterpreted her entries.)  The ending of Refuge seemed random, though it was very interesting.  Who is Terry Tempest Williams? To read more about William's work and who she is visit:  Terry Tempest William...
Read more