Synopsis: "On a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs. Runs from the beings that only look human, who have scattered Earth's last survivors. To stay alone is to stay alive, until she meets Evan Walker. Beguiling and mysterious, Evan may be her only hope. Now Cassie must choose: between trust and despair, between defiance and surrender, between life and death."
The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey follows the story of a teenage girl called Cassie as she tries to survive in a world that has been invaded by an alien species. The invasion however wasn't like the Hollywood film view the world expected and instead happened over the course of four waves. The first wave was an EMP which wiped out everything running on electricity, batteries and engines, killing half a million people. The second put that number to shame as a tsunami hit the world's coast, predominantly effecting America's West and East coast. The third was a deadly disease which took out 97% of the world's remaining population, and the fourth brought the Silencers who were set to take out the last few pockets of civilisation. But that's not it, there's a fifth wave coming but no one knows what it is.
It's a shame that so many people raved about how 'amazing' this book is before I picked it up as it gave me high expectations, unfortunately I found myself somewhat disappointed after the completion of this book and I dominantly put that down to me expecting far more from it because of the awesome reviews I had heard.
Although the world Yancey has created is innovative and thought provoking, I found that the plot didn't have much to it to keep me hooked and interested. I initially wasn't too bothered about the slow pace of the book as I was expecting it to all build up to an epic conclusion, but I was left incredibly disappointed by the lack of action the last few chapters provided; everything seemed to be too clean-cut for me.
However saying that I thoroughly enjoyed how Yancey provided a variation on character point of views throughout the book in order to further enlighten pre and post invasion. The story dominantly follows the point of view of Cassie, despite being primarily dual narrated by another character who's name I shall not mention because of spoilers. As a result of this the book is very character driven and provides a lot of character development.
The lack of action within this story is really disappointing, as previously mentioned. Yancey provides so much opportunity for action but there just isn't very much of it and whenever there is action I didn't find myself anxious or on the edge of my seat as I turned each page, it was all just very average to read and some of the events that unfolded seemed too simple and easily achieved when they shouldn't have been. I was also a little disappointed with the fifth wave as I had a lot of suspicion over what was happening at Camp Haven so when it was ultimately revealed I didn't find myself too surprised or gripped by it.
Ultimately The 5th Wave is a survival story and an examination of the state of the human race in world where it is all about kill or be killed and because of that I expected far more from this read. I just hope that the next book in the series, which is due out Summer 2014, delivers more.
I give Rick Yancey and The 5th Wave ★★★
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