Title: The 5th Wave
Author: Rick Yancey
Genre: Science Fiction
Published by: The penguins Group
The 5th Wave
“After the first 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 applies: trust no one.” The 5th Wave is beginning, the Others final attack to wipe the Earth clean of humans. Cassie, one of the last survivors, knows this. To be alone is to stay alive, Cassie believes, until she meets mysterious Evan Walker. Evan is Cassie’s only hope to finding her brother, and stopping the Others from destroying humanity once and for all. What the Others do not know is that the last remaining survivors will not be the weak.
“The 5th Wave” was a very tasteful read. Rick Yancey wrote the book with a lot of excitement. All the characters were very well written, and the twists were unpredicted and well explained, which made for a great sci-fi read. If I were to give this book a percentage I would give it 99.8%, because it had a lot of new, fresh ideas, that made the reader think about the world differently. My favourite quote would be “ You want to compare yourself to an insect, Cassie? If you’re an insect, then you’re a mayfly. Here for one day and then gone. That doesn’t have anything to do with the Others. It’s always been that way. We’re here, and then we’re gone, and it’s not about the time we’re here, but what we do with the time.” pg.178 This quote stood out for me because that is how life is. Life is not measured in how many days we live, but rather with what we do with them. We cannot control how long we live, but we can control what we do with our days on Earth.
This book made me learn a lot about how we are as a human race, and about life. Cassie first believes that you cannot trust anyone, because you do not know whether he/she is a friend or foe. That applies for certain situations, but for the most part it is humanly impossible not to trust anyone. It goes against human nature and if you cannot learn to trust, you would be living your entire life as fear’s shadow. Do not let fear rule your life, because life is all about taking risks. Cassie learns this when the book is just nearing the end. My suggestion for Rick’s future novels is to put the name of the character who is narrating the chapter. I am giving him this advice because it took a lot of rereading to figure out which character was narrating certain chapters.
I would recommend this book to kids ages 12 and up, because you have to be a very dedicated reader, to get past the first 100 pages of Cassie’s retelling of her past. This book’s content is quite violent so keep this in mind before giving it to the average 8-year-old. I hope that you will go and buy “The 5th Wave” and enjoy it as much as I did.
