The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

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.







So this is one of those books that has a massive hype surrounding it. I'd been excited for it for quite a while and decided that I was going to pre-order it. Before I started reading, I saw so many amazing reviews for this. When I started reading, I was hoping that it would live up to all the hype. And boy did it. It actually smashed all my expectations of it. It was so much better than I could have ever imagined.

The world building in this book was fantastic. The first 100 or so pages were basically about what had happened. Cassie was telling the story about what happened to her life. Everyone was just going about their usual routine until an alien mothership appeared in the sky. Even though they knew it was coming, they had no idea what to expect. Cassie describes the 4 waves that happened and how they killed nearly every living person on the planet. I loved hearing about what had happened to the world. Even though it was shocking and terrible, the writing was spectacular and had me gripped right from the start. Having the back story told straight away helped me understand what was happening a lot more. It started off with Cassie in the present, and then she told the story of her past and how everything that had happened led up to that moment in the present with the soldier. 

I really liked Cassie's character. She used to be this normal, average teenage girl who had a crush on the hottest guy in school. But after the alien invasion, she had to change. Cassie became this strong, resourceful young woman who was determined to do everything she possibly could to survive - which meant trusting no one and believing she was the last human alive. Hearing Cassie's back story helped me understand why she became the person she is and I understood her more.

Zombie was kind of an odd character to start with. I was kind of unsure about him, but as the storyline progressed, I started to like him. Although he's a soldier who's being trained to be a killing machine, he has a soft side which I loved seeing. Zombie isn't this character's real name - incase you haven't guessed - and I was really surprised when I found out who it was. When that happened, I started liking his character even more. I felt sorry for him because of the position he's in and everything he's lost. But when Nugget appeared he started to show his softer caring side and I really liked seeing that side of him.

And then we have Evan. Oh, Evan. Evan was this sweet farm boy who rescued Cassie after she'd been shot by a Silencer. He was so caring and thoughtful that I just loved his character. He and Cassie had kind of a romance thing going on, but I'm not actually too sure what's going on with them. They had their ups and their downs, but they always ended up together. I'm rooting for them in the next book. There was a twist with Evan that you kind of already know, but it was still a shock to hear him say it out loud.
I think there may be a love triangle in the second book. I hope not, but there could be.

Other than romantic relationships, we had the relationship between Cassie and her brother Sam. Cassie and Sam are so close after the alien invasion, and after Sam is taken by some soldiers to a safe place and Cassie witnesses something awful, she spends her time trying to find a way to get her brother back. She worries about him and it was heart wrenching to see her without him. She was always thinking about him and I was just so desperate for them to be reunited!

AND THEN THE ENDING! It just about tore my heart in half. I want to know what happened! What happened to Evan?! I need to know NOW!

This whole book was just fantastic. It seriously blew me away. I think this is the first book I've read that actually has a full on alien invasion. Rick Yancey did a fantastic job with this book. It had me hooked from the start and I just couldn't put it down. 

If you haven't read this book yet, I highly suggest going and getting hold of a copy. This is probably my favourite book of the year so far. I think it's going to be extremely hard to top this book.