Book Review - The Fifth Wave

The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Oh, the incredible drama of teenage girls.

If there is one thing - and really, there is only one thing - that annoyed me about this book it was how irritatingly dramatic and ridiculous teenage girls can be. That said, it's a very accurate characterization of a teenage girl, for what it's worth.

The 5th wave takes place in a post-alien-apocalypse world, where the few survivors are trying to make it through the 5th wave of attacks, so different from what anyone expected or made movies about, by an alien race bent on taking over the earth and making it their own. Though the main plot line belongs to Cassie, a teenage girl who has lost her mother to the plague and her father to a bomb and is trying to save her brother from the fate of the last wave, my favourite parts were the chapters dedicated to Ben, a young man the same age as Cassie - who went, in fact, to her high school. His character goes through amazing development and is fascinating to watch. Cassie, on the other hand, whines a lot, gets distracted by a hot boy, and does fairly typical teenage girl stuff. At least, as much as she can in the presence of an apocalypse.

I found this to be a very different take on aliens-take-over-the-planet. The author came up with a way to make the attacks very different from the typical ideas in this genre, which was refreshing. As well, some of the characters were intriguing, and I loved following their stories, as well as being left hungry to learn more about them (can't wait for the next installment in the series!).



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