Review: The 5th Wave by Rick Yancy

 

 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, 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.

Description taken from Goodreads

My Review

I’m dead.  This book killed me.  It ripped out my heart and stuck it in a blender while it messed with my head telling me to believe all the wrong things.  Be prepared when you read The 5^th Wave.  Be prepared to have a meltdown.

I had heard so many awesome things about The 5^th Wave but for some reason I kept putting it off.  I had bought it finally but it was just sitting on my shelf and towards the beginning of July, I finally started it.  But then I had some commitments that I had to follow through on, so The 5^th Wave had to take a back seat for awhile.  So, I finally picked it up again on a Sunday morning and read until I was done with it by Monday afternoon.  And it just killed me.  It freaking killed me guys.

It was disturbing, heartbreakingly awful, honest right down to the core and beautiful all at the same time.

We start out with Cassie, who is pretty much, a nobody just trying to survive since the arrival of the Others.  That’s what I like about Cassie.  She wasn’t trained for this; she doesn’t have any special skills to get her through this invasion.  She’s just a normal girl who does what she has to do in order to survive.  She is full of determination to keep a promise she made to her little brother.  She’s feisty, sarcastic and snarky.  But she has major trust issues.  Which is understandable given that the planet has gone through 4 waves already, pretty much wiping out the whole population of the earth.  It’s a scary world out there, a world where a 16 year old girl should not be alone but her only choice is that she really should stay alone.  And that’s when she meets Evan, and she knows that she shouldn’t trust him, but she can’t help but stay with him.

I really don’t want to give too much away because I think this is one of those books where you need to read it to get the full effect.  You need to experience every mind-blowing twist and turn.   I will say this though, it’s told from multiple perspectives and it gives us different angles of the story and it is extremely effective.  I feel like I’m hearing every side of this war.  The survivors, the fighters, and the Others. 

I just don’t know what to say about this book.  It’s badass, terrifying, and heartbreaking, with occasional humor from our main girl Cassie.  You can’t help but wonder if this could really happen.  That’s how effective Yancy’s writing is.  It makes you pause and think for a few seconds, which is really scary.  Thinking about all the natural disasters over the last couple of years.  You never know. 

If you are a fan of post-apocalyptic and sci-fi stories and you haven’t read Rick Yancy’s The 5^th Wave, then I don’t know what you have been doing.  Get off your butt and go out and buy The 5^th Wave.  I promise you, you won’t be disappointed.  

 5 out of 5 hearts