The 5th Wave, Rick Yancey

Umm . . . well this is awkward. 

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.

Now, see, that sounds really good. Right? Hmm. I don't know. I mean, you might like it. I guess a lot of people do. My friend really loved it.

I don't even know if it was generally bad, or if it was just a huge let down. There was a lot of hype around this book and I really, honest to God, did not think it was that amazing.

The plot sounded great and awesome and it sounds like it should be full of action. But it's not. That was one let down. And then you think the "beguiling and mysterious, Evan Walker" would make it all romantic and cutesy or whatever you want to call it, but that doesn't work either. And really, Cassie isn't running from anyone. She's roaming the countryside, until she comes across a city and blah blah blah. NO ACTION. NO ADVENTURE. It actually makes me so mad now that I think of all the possibilities. It could have been so good.

The setting is sometime not too far in the future, if the end of the world started today and we were already past four waves of terrible things killing most of the world's population. It could be possible at some point, I think. I mean, there's a lot of space in, well, space, so there's not really any way that we could be sure that aliens don't exist. I don't know.

This book is a whole bunch of "I don't know"s.

First of all, it split up into parts, and in each part, there are like five or six chapters (more or less depending on the part). A lot of books have this, you might say. But do a lot of books have about nine or ten parts? No, it's usually two or three. Maybe even four. That's not what I have a problem with, I'm just explaining how it's different. So then, with each part, the POV changes. It never tells you this anywhere, though, so you have to spend the first handful of paragraphs trying to figure out who is talking instead of actually understanding what you're reading. And sometimes it even changes from past tense to present tense! Or first person narrative to third person! That's the worst, because then for a paragraph or two you think the POV-person is talking about someone else but it's really just the narrator talking about someone.

I don't like that. At. All.

And so not only am I scrambling to figure out who is actually in charge of the part I just started, I'm also trying to figure out if it's a flashback or not. There are whole chapters devoted to flashbacks. But the thing is, some started with the characters thoughts about something so it's actually impossible to tell if it's a flashback, until he/she/the narrator starts talking about actual events. I don't like it one bit.

Let me put it in a nicer way so this doesn't just sound horrible.

Basically the POV changes a lot and it's kind of hard to dig through it but it all adds up in the end.

Except, not really. I mean, kind of. I don't want to sound like I really hated this book! I liked some of it. I liked the idea of it.

It could have been so much better if it only said whose point of view it was in at the beginning of each chapter. Seriously. Easy fix. 

Anyways, the main character is Cassie. She makes horrible decisions. Horrible. No girl would ever make them. I think that's the problem sometimes when middle-aged men write stories where the main character is a girl and the point of view is first person. So all her thoughts and feelings are being written by a middle-aged dude. Yeah, that doesn't always work (James Patterson pulled it off, Scott Westerfeld too, but they're like writing gods so it's a given that they'd get it down). Like, there's this one part? Cassie mentions stocking up on lady-supplies, if you get my drift without making anyone uncomfortable, and I don't really believe that any girl needs to tell the world that, since it's pretty much what any girl would do. And sometimes she just makes the stupidest choices. Like, trust a guy that's seen you naked while you were unconscious? Yeah, I won't spoil that part for you, but that's stupid. No girl would be like, oh yeah sure, when she realizes that a boy has undressed her while she's unconscious. I don't think so. And then, it says:

""If you try to peek in that mirror, I'll know," I warn the guy who's already seen my naked, but that was unconsciously naked, which is not the same thing." (Yeah that's an actual quote, pg. 165-166. Dead serious.)

I don't even know what to say about that! Cassie you are so stupid. I'm sorry you were created by middle aged man. Like, she doesn't know what happened while she was unconscious and naked for God's sake! Most girls would jump to the worst conclusion right away; I just cannot handle it. She acts as if it's no big deal that this stranger had her naked and unresponsive in his house and she can't even leave because she's injured and then guess what happens next that would never happen in a million years. Yeah, the dim-witted Cassie falls for the "beguiling and mysterious" Evan Walker. Like, no, I don't think so. I'm not even going to keep going on that note because I will never stop.

So this review started out, uh, okay-ish. Ended kind of roughly.

I still don't want to say that I didn't like this book in anyway, but it's pretty close (sorry Emmy). The only thing I liked was the potential. It had the potential to be a really adventurous book. It had the potential to have a good Romeo-Juliet type thing between Evan and Cassie. It had the potential to have some good plot twists. It was all presented badly though, ruining most, if not the whole thing.

I don't know what to tell you. I guess go get it from a library. Don't go and buy it unless you're certain you'll like it (hey, you might). I kind of wish I didn't spend $20.00 on it, but I guess what's done is done, whatever.