The 5th Wave Review

Yet another late review, but I've been busy this week preparing for school since my vacations ends in four days. Come to think of it, my blogging is probably going to slow down a lot once school's started again. Just like last time, I will have a spoiler free part first and then go into detail in the second half. That's a spoiler warning for those of you who haven't read the 5th Wave yet and are still planning to.

The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

This book has its ups and downs for me. A lot of people love it and are really invested in it. I can't say I'm one of those people. I'm not some alien-hater, but the aliens did make me doubt whether or not I was interested in reading this book. Why? Long story short: I read the Host and loved it. But always when I hear 'aliens' and 'Young Adult' all the alarms sound. The main characters always fall in love with the other side and then there's the whole 'special exception' thing and they're going to fight the aliens together. And that isn't a bad plot. It's nice and enjoyable (unless it's poorly executed, that is). But authors do it all the time, making it obnoxious and a terrible cliché. If you want my approval, there has to be something interesting and original about your story. I didn't want to look back at the Host and be like, "I don't like you anymore because I've read all your younger siblings."
So what got me to read it eventually?
A reread of the synopsis? Nope.
In the mood for alien clichés? Nope.
Temporarily brain loss after rereading Allegiant? Still considering that one.
Cover? No, of course not. I'm not that superficial.
Reviews? Keep trying.
Book trailer? Maybe. A little. Yes. If I ever publish anything, I'll be sure it has the most epic book trailer ever (and a pretty cover, because The Selection Series).

So the 5th Wave is about Cassie, a teenage girl who's survived the first four 'waves' of an alien invasion of Earth. Every wave consisted of a new threat that has been constructed by the aliens to wipe out the human race. Cassie is on a quest to find her younger brother and gets the help of Evan.

I'm not saying anything else, because I suppose you can fill in the heart-shaped blanks yourself.

This book. It isn't bad, but I didn't love everything. Cassie's love story is terrible, one of the worst executed ones I've read about thus far, but the world building is fascinating. Cassie is a cool narrator and there are other characters I actually really liked (except for Evan). I would describe this book as a combination of the Hunger Games (10%), the Host (40%), and the Maze Runner Trilogy (50%).

But I loved all those books (Maze Runner Kind-Of-Loved), so it seems unlogical to not love their weird percentage baby. But the romance and the slowness. I just could not love it.

When do you read this book:

-If you like alien invasions where the narrator falls in love with the opposite side.

-If you're in the mood for a kind of action-adventure-y story, I guess? With aliens?

Rating: 3 stars on Goodreads, 3,2 stars in my brain (Where I am the queen, and rate books as ridiculously as I want!)

The spoiler section begins here. You have been warned. Twice.

Notes

I made notes this time around. Some are normal notes, some are more like Cinemasins with books (oops). I will dump some of them in this review, so you can see what I was thinking while I read the book.

World building

This is the Holocaust if the Nazis had been aliens and their soldiers hadn't known what they were doing.

Despite the fact that alien invasions are a pretty worn-out main theme in literature, I still think Rick Yancey did a good job on giving them a new twist. I liked how we got to know so much about the waves and what effect they had on the people. The atmosphere is very dark and kind of disorienting. The flashbacks are mainly what kept me reading this book, because the invasion itself fascinated me the most. The waves are really smart. I have to give Rick some props for thinking of such clever ways to wipe out the human race. I loved when they were sitting in the gym. It was exactly what I imagine my school doing. Probably the start of an alien apocalypse. Let's hide in the gym! The camps are pretty scary. They felt to me kind of like concentration camps from WWII with those ovens.

Perfectly safe. If anyone ever tells me I'm perfectly safe, I'll now know I should run like there's no tomorrow, because there is no tomorrow.

The suspense is the reason I associated this book with the Maze Runner Trilogy. You think you know something, but the next moment you don't, but then it turns out that what you thought wasn't true was actually true, and so on.

There is no such thing as peaceful coexistence when you go to someone's planet and say, "Hey, we're consciousnesses from a planet that we can no longer live on. We have to share brains with some of you. But it's totally cool because there aren't that many of us!"

The aliens themselves, though... The whole consciousness thing made me long for Stephenie Meyer's shiny worms. I liked the 'go Dorothy' stuff, but Wonderland? Why WONDERLAND? Hey, we're aliens and since we have to pretend we're humans and we've snatched the alien stuff, we'll give or brainreader a very not-alien name like Wonderland. In what way does that make any sense?

I don't particularly like alien invasions, not just for the reasons above, but also because I like blaming the human race for its own downfall. I like seeing that we messed up and now we're all divided or dead or working like slaves for the evil government. I like seeing we're a bunch of ignorant fools and that if we don't do something, this is a kind of plausible situation.

But of course, those are just personal preferences.

Back to the consciousnesses, they open a lot of plot holes. Like, why can consciousnesses only live on Earth? Why can't they stay in their spaceship forever? Don't they need some left over humans to walk around in once they deem the Earth fit for inhabitation? Can they go live in animals?

I know some of these questions are answered in book #2, since I"ve already read it, but trust me, even there, it's still super confusing.

Writing

"Do you know how to tell who the enemy is, Cassie?"

Let me start with the following: Rick Yancey knows how to state something. With that I mean that he can say something really powerful without it sounding like cheesy I'm-trying-way-too-hard-to-state-something-memorable sh!t. Let me tell you, out of own experience, that's not as easy as it sounds. I love the whole 'I am humanity' line and I think the way Rick Yancey keeps writing these really haunting sentences is what makes the atmosphere so tense.

If you can't take some swearing, I wouldn't recommend this book to you. I personally, despite my religion, can take some nasty words. This is partly because, in the Netherlands, we have two types of swearing:
1. Nasty words: ass, F-bombs, etc. These I do use myself to some extent.
2. Sweary swearing: hell, damn, etc. These I do not use.
I could be wrong, but I think there's less of a division between these in the English language.
Anyway, I actually occasionally appreciate some mild swearing in literature, if it serves a purpose. In this case, I think it did. Teenagers remain teenagers, even at the dawn of the end of humanity.

What I did not like: switching perspectives are OK, but I hated the switching between first and third person. It distracted me. But I guess that's just me.
What just annoyed me: Ben says things that Cassie has said exactly the same even though they haven't met in multiple months. I understand that that's to connect the storylines at some points, but it's just... That doesn't make any... I CAN'T EVEN!

Characters

“I don't move. I wait behind my log, terrified. Over the past ten minutes, it's become such a dear friend, I consider naming it: Howard, my pet log.” 

I loved Cassie. She's a fabulous and hilarious narrator. I loved how she keeps talking to bear and makes all these this witty comments even when she's facing death. She's quite brave if you consider her hopeless situation and goes after what she wants.

Speaking of what she wants, let's go on to Sammy. Sammy is adorable. And he actually got me tearing up (which says a lot since I was in my living room surrounded by parents). I cried at the paragraph where he prays with Ben, okay. It was just so incredibly cute. Sam grows so much throughout the book and he's forced to grow up at an impossible speed.

Ben. I liked Ben. He grows, he's interesting, his situation is interesting. He is a good example of a well thought out character I could not fall in love with. This is not because he is poorly written, but because he just isn't my kind of person. A little to ignorant, a little too cocky. But that's good, since in real life, I don't like everyone I meet either.

Ringer. Ringer is my favorite character in this series along with Cassie. She kicks ass and she's smart, but she's a little more mysterious than Cassie, which I like in a character. In real life, people aren't clearly one or the other. As Tris puts it, "People are layers and layers of secrets..." Knowing what I know from book #2, I will grow to love her even more.

I hated Evan with a fiery passion. He's a stalker, suck-up, annoying, over-protective, and just cheesy with his, "shark who dreams he was a man" or something. I wasn't feeling it. He is kind of predictable and always has to save the day. He actually made me like Cassie less, because he neutralized her so much.

Romance

The romance, to me, is awful. Me did not enjoy. This is, I think, because of two reasons here:

1. I hated Evan. Pretty clear statement with explanation above.

2. I didn't see (/ read) them fall in love. With romance in books I have no problem. I like it. What I don't like is when the falling-in-love part is not there in the book. The only reasons we're really supposed to like Evan are: a. his good looks, b. his soft hands, and c. he saved Cassie's life (after almost killing her LOL). The good looks, sadly, are enough to win some girls over, but not me. I need to see the like before I can feel the love growing. No, I did not feel the love tonight. Sorry, fellow fangirls. I can inform you, though, that a different love story in the Infinite Sea (earlier annoyingly referred to as 'book #2') did work for me. I'm totally shipping Ringer and SPOILER.

How does consciousness need a PLANET to survive? How does consciousness even start existing?

Plot

As I said, it reminded me of the Maze Runner: suspense and yet more suspense. Layers and liars of secrets. There are some plot holes with the consciousnesses, though. Many plot holes. Why? Why destroy all humans? The aliens are complete rage and no compassion or empathy. Why take Earth if there are better things to claim out there (if alien consciousnesses exist, I demand a candy planet. Same level of ridiculousness and unbelievability.)? The things I demand from sci-fi (or not and):

A. I learn something about human nature.

B. I have an eye-opener about our current society. (Guess what book I'm referring to.)

C. I learn something about myself and my near surroundings.

D. The scenario is believable and thereby scary because it could very well be our future.

E. The story is empowering. (It makes me want to change things, start a rebellion (but not die), get out of my mental maze, break free of my family and do what I want, etc.)

I have yet to find the deeper meaning of the 5th Wave except for another speech about the fact that the Holocaust really sucked and that I shouldn't trust anyone. (To all parents of reading obsessed teenagers: If your kid has trust issues, blame the books.) I get the guilt-consumes-you-and-promises-are-all-you-hold-on-to stuff, but I can get that from a ton of better books I've read. It can't compete with serious political manipulation in the Hunger Games or a great coming-of-age-and-making-your-own-choices in Divergent. I care deeply about my deeper meaning stuff. I just cannot lie.

The plot itself is good, but the story line is standard.

Cool female protagonist is on a quest for loved one, stumbles across boy, falls in love with boy, frees loved one, and escapes. The end.

The storyline with Ben and Ringer I very much liked. Well, I liked it more than Cassie's plot. We go into the aliens and the camp more and you see more of the talentedness of Rick Yancey as a writer.

Summary

Romance is shity. Plot is okay but swallow. Characters are inconsistent to me. World building is what kept this story going. And of course the suspense.