Cassie for Cassiopeia
When you have lost everything you lived for, what do you live for? Cassie in The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey has lost her mother, her brother and her father and she still fights on. Even though she might be the last human on earth. Would you still fight?
Book Review: The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
Rating:
Title & Author: The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
Genre: Dystopia, Fantasy
Release Date: May 7 2013
Series: The Fifth Wave
Publisher: Penguin Books
Synopsis
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.
First off, this book is 460 pages of mind-blowing, faced paced, awesomeness. I put me on the edge of my seat and gave me the need to finish it as soon as possible. I liked it and did not have one moment I did not like. It was refreshing and something completely different from vampires and witches and wizards.
Second, I must seem mad, but the premise of The 5th Wave feels like it could really happen. Aliens are taking over the world, exterminating humans left and right, just to get a planet of their own. To me it seems there could be more out there and that makes me like the book more.
Rick Yancey wrote the book from different points-of-view, which was a bit confusing. But made me also try to guess from whose eyes you were seeing the world now. When I got used to it, it completely made sense to me and I could already guess from small clues, who was who. I also liked that, because of the many POVs, you revisited a lot of sense in the book multiple times and get a better overview of what was going on.
I like the character of Cassiopeia, Cassie. She is witty, fearless and sassy. Also she is so determined to live, and eventually find her brother, she comes out of hiding to face off with the Silencer who shot her. I think it takes a lot of courage to do that and was awed by that – I don’t think I could have done it – She has a good sense of humor which I liked too, which says something about the author too, of course, because he came up with her humor. I liked the humor overall in this book.
In the book Cassie possesses a bear, called Bear – who would have guessed – and even though her backpack is stuffed, she insists on keeping it with her. The use of this bear helps to make Cassie seem more alive. It is a nice touch the writer put in and it really makes her – to me – more special than a lot of other main characters in books.
Yes, this book also has a love story, but it is not as present as in most books. I liked how much of it was just left out and for the reader to assume – Someone once told me assumption is the mother fuck of all fuck ups, but not for this book, alright? And then there is also the conflict it creates in our main characters, it is nice for a change.
Evan Walker is a change of character too. He is gentle and comes across as human even though he is different. He too has lost his family, but went back to living his life as if nothing happened, until Cassie comes along. Good thing for him, because otherwise he would have been the most boring character in this book. Because I think even Sammy, Cassie’s brother, was more interesting before Cassie came into Evans life – Lucky for him!
The soldiers, lead by Zombie, are funny and sometimes gruesome. Kids learning to kill… Is something I always get sad from. But Rick Yancey really tries to keep things light in these parts. He uses the dynamic between the different kids to make it fun, even though they are actually trained to become soldiers and end up as soldiers on missions.
Zombie is a nice surprise, the first thing you read from his POV is him being sick from the 3th wave and how he lost his family. But guessing who he really is, is still hard. Only after Cassie meets him, you really know. Which is interesting, because he is mentioned before, but you just think it just a guy from the past – Like!
By the way, the intro was especially awesome, it just puts you right in the story. You know something more than the characters and you want to know when they figure it out and to me it feels like, if this would ever happen to us, it would start like this. Not with a big ship floating above the earth and rays wiping governments of the face of the earth, but from the inside, getting aliens in places where it matters. But hé, that’s just me!
This book is a must read for everyone who likes dystonia novels. Rick Yancey really out did himself and I am very curious to move on to The Infinite Sea, the second book in this trilogy. I am curious who Cassie works out with her feelings towards Evan and Ben – Give me more!
The Movie
On April 15 2014 it was announced that there would be a movie for this book and is scheduled to be released on January 15 2016 in the USA. I am looking forward to it, even though I am skeptical about books-turned-to-movie movies. Cloë Grace Moretz, Liev Schreiber and Maika Monroe are great actors and there has not been a single movie that contained any of the three actors I did not like.
Let me know what you thought of this book (and/or the movie)!
If you have any requests for which book I should talk about next, please let me know in the comments down below.
For now, let books enrich your life!