The 5th Wave Book Review (Spoilers)

The 5^th Wave Book Review 

(SPOILERS ALERT!)

AUTHOR: Rick Yancey

RELEASE DATE: May 7, 2013

SERIES: The 5^th Wave Series (Book 1)

PAGES: Approx. 496 pages

RATING: 5/5 STARS

I’ve never been much of a science-fiction/adventure fan when it came to novels. Possibly because there are few books in the YA section that actually take place in outer space or feature extraterrestrial creatures and unknown planets. If there were any novels in the past 3 years that featured any of it, I wouldn’t know, because science-fiction novels rarely achieve mainstream popularity, especially when most readers are prone to fantasy, horror, action/adventure and romance. It’s kind of depressing because science-fiction/adventure is one of my favorite TV and movie genres to watch: I love seeing all kinds of aliens, planets, spaceships and how ordinary people react to the extraordinary, seeing their reactions when they face a variety of aliens that they never would’ve thought existed and most certainly weren’t like E.T the Extraterrestrial.

That being said, when I received a paperback version of The 5^th Wave as a Christmas gift, my happiness would’ve registered a 10 on the Richter scale because I have been dying to read this novel since I’ve first learned about it on YouTube and seen the movie trailers. In fact, once the Christmas season was over and I no longer fretted over wrapping overdue presents or spending time with friends and family, I sat down with a hot mug of cocoa and started reading.

*~*~*~*

Cassie (for Cassiopeia, not Cassidy or Cassandra) was your run-of-the-mill ordinary girl in love with the most popular boy in school when the mothership arrived to Earth. When at first nothing happened, people took it as sign of peace, and awaited news of first contact with the extraterrestrials. News media were frantic for information; governments gathered together and sent word to the Others to meet on diplomatic terms; most other people went about with their everyday life, seemingly not affected by the ship in the sky.

And then the 1^st wave happened.

From there everything seemed to go downhill, each new wave that hit as massive, as deadly and as devastating as the last. And Cassie is no longer your ordinary girl loving the popular jock from a distance. Her mother has bled to death, succumbing to a plague; her father was shot and ultimately killed by a sonic blast; her younger brother was taken by the Others for unknown reasons – Cassie has long forgotten about the popular jock she loved, Ben Parrish. Now she’s the heroine trying to live through each new devastation the Others throw at her, her entire hope and existence hanging on the hope that her younger brother, Sammy, is still alive.

Ben Parrish, the popular jock, doesn’t know who Cassie is. Wouldn’t matter to him, at any point. All he does know is that his family is dead and he’s going to die too. Those infected by the bloody plague always do. Yet his life is spared and now given new meaning, as he’s recruited into the last working military base on the planet training other survivors, like him, to fight back. No longer is he Ben Parrish – he is Zombie, a soldier with one goal and one goal only: kill the Others.

Two different people. Two different perspectives. One single-minded determination to live through the next long-awaited disaster: the 5^th Wave.

Of all the apocalyptic novels that I have read, The 5^th Wave was extraordinarily unique in how most of the world’s population got killed off. Millions died in the first few waves without the Others even having to come out of their spaceships. And those that have survived, thus far, don’t consider themselves lucky in that respect. The way people are killed off in great numbers is devastating but when you read about how it’s all accomplished…it’s chilling. Simplistic, but that’s what makes it so chilling.

Another thing that I love about this novel is Cassie, one of our main POVs. She’s not the typical heroine who already knows how to fight, how to shoot a gun, gives her trust easily, believes she’s always right and looks on the brighter side of things when things get bleak. She kills people. She makes mistakes. She is careful never to let her guard down. She automatically distrusts everyone she meets. And she’s a realist – she knows she can die at any time, but she refuses to be a coward. If she’s going down, she’s taking everything around her down with her. She is brave (the main villain says so, too), and each new disaster and death hardens her resolve to survive. Her sole mission isn’t to rid the world of the Others, though; she doesn’t believe herself to be a Messiah, a Chosen One, or even a hero. She’s an ordinary girl trying to keep a promise she made to her brother just before he was taken away, and that’s her sole reason for surviving for as long as she has. And I think that’s just fantastic.

Ben Parrish, the other main POV, goes from a popular jock with everything in life to a depressing dying nobody, a soon-to-be statistic in the death population, when he rebuilds himself into Zombie, the hardened soldier. He has shaped his entire existence to revolve around one goal: eradicating the Other population; he quite literally represents the human spirit striving to survive and get one-over onto the species that dared to tread on his home. It’s a classic trope that can be found in most any other novel featuring an apocalyptic setting but it’s not a bad thing here and, in regards to his character development, actually fits.

The 5^th Wave’s popularity is likely due to the fact that of all the apocalyptic futures we read about in novels or see on the screen, this is the most realistic of them all. It’s chilling and heartbreaking, and 90% of the time I was reading I was at the edge of my seat, awaiting the next disaster, the next death, the next horrifying detail that Rick Yancey put in here that made this book a bestseller and certainly one of the greatest science-fiction/adventure novels I’ve read in a long time.

Readers will not be disappointed by giving this book a try. I finished this book within days because it was too gripping a tale to put down. And for all those skeptics out there who are still on the fence about this book, read the following blurb and tell me if it doesn’t pique your interest and give you chills at the same time:

After the 1^st Wave, only darkness remains. After the 2^nd, only the lucky escape. And after the 3^rd, only the unlucky survive. After the 4^th Wave, only one rule applies: Trust no one. NOW IS THE DAWN OF THE 5^TH WAVE.