The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

Hello there. I've just finished an absolutely fantastic book. And I need to talk about it. Like, right now. I can't talk about it without spoilers but if you're interested and have not read the book, I'll warn you before ruining the story.

 

 The 5th Wave by 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, just one rule appliesi: TRUST NO ONE.

Now it's the dawn of the 5th Wave, and 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, Cassie believes, until she meets Evan Walker. Beguiling and mysterious, Evan Walker may be Cassie's only hope for rescuing her brother - or even saving herself. But Cassie must choose: between trust and despair, between defiance and surrender, between life and death. To give up or to get up.

Okay, so I don't even know where to start. And I can't say much in the non-spoiler section other than go read the book. It absolutely blew my mind. It's told from two people's points of view, one being Cassie. She's a seventeen (I believe) year old kick-ass girl. Both her parents are dead and her little brother has been taken away. So she wants to rescue him, even though she has trouble staying alive herself. She has this wonderfully sarcastic way of telling the story that made me laugh out loud in situations that weren't funny at all. And then she meets Evan Walker and everything gets more confusing. The second protagonist is Private Zombie, who is being trained to be a soldier at Camp Haven, this military base that Cassie's brother has been taken to as well.

What I loved about both Cassie's and Zombie's story was that not only they didn't know who to trust, but you reading it have no clue either. It always went the same way for me: I thought something was completely obvious and was sure I knew exactly what's going on but then suddenly you start second guessing that and you're not quite so sure anymore until you're convinced it's the other way around after all. And it just made me crazy and you only find out what's really going on towards the end which I thought was amazing. It's overall just an amazingly intriguing story and I highly highly recommend it.

OKAY, STOP READING NOW IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE BOOK. SERIOUSLY, IT WILL COMPLETELY RUIN IT FOR YOU AND I CAN'T LET THAT HAPPEN. THE BOOK'S TOO GOOD TO BE RUINED LIKE THIS.

Okay, so I need to talk about two things. Like I've said above, it was all ups and downs for me with being sure someone's the bad guy and then not.

Evan Walker

At first I was like 'yeah, that guy is clearly the one who shot Cassie'. I mean we even got to see some of it from the Silencer's point of view and he said he couldn't kill her. Like in a way she meant something to him. So it wasn't all that impossible that he would save her life, right? And then he lived in this house and wasn't scared of staying in the same place even though the bad guys could walk in any day. And he always sneaks out at night to do some mysterious stuff. So, yeah, he's obviously an alien.

But then there were the family pictures. And the way he acted and had some sort of explanation for everything, I started to doubt the alien-thing. It was still very clear he was hiding something but I didn't really believe in what I thought at the beginning anymore. And then, just when I was sure he was just an innocent young man, it turns out he's one of the Others after all. Just one who happens to be in love with Cassie. Somehow I liked him a lot more after we found out. And I loved their fight and how she wants to kill him but then can't really. And I loved what happened afterwards even more, with him coming to help her rescue Sammy, even though he promised he'd stay away. That just leaves one thing I didn't love at all. The ending. He isn't dead, right? I mean, yes, there was this huge explosion that he had no chance to escape. But he isn't dead, right? RIGHT? Seriously, this is the question I've been asking myself constantly since I've finished the book about an hour ago. He isn't dead. He can't be. He'll come back. He will. I'm sure.

Camp Haven

Okay, so this was the second rollercoaster of thoughts. When Cassie tells us how Sammy had been taken away and how the soldiers killed everyone else afterwards, I was like 'yes, these are clearly aliens.' And after that they constantly tell Sammy how he's perfectly safe. Yeah, perfectly safe, of course. Clearly, they couldn't possibly be perfectly safe. They're aliens, I knew it. But then we switch to Ben's point of view and his experience with the 'perfectly safe' and all Vosch's talking about how they're going to kill all the aliens convinced me that, yes, these are just some hardcore soldiers who are going to kill all the aliens. And of course the thing with how they're the only ones with electricity threw me off. Of course I thought it was a little conspicious that they were just building a military camp out there in the open and nobody would ever care. And the Wonderland thing was definitely a sign that something was awefully wrong here. And thinking about it now, I have no clue how I could've ever been convinced that those are not aliens. But I was. You really can't trust anyone. And Rick Yancey has made a fool of me again.

If you haven't guessed it by now, I seriously loved the book. I can't wait for the next one to come out. I need to know what's going to happen. I'm so glad that I picked this book up because at first I wasn't too sure about it. Aliens were never really my thing, after all. But this book was just so original and fantastic that you can't possibly not like it.

Thank you so much for reading! And I can't stress enough how badly I want you to read this book.