The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

5 Stars

I have officially gotten round to reading the 5th Wave! I have owned this book for what must be around 12 months and have just, well, forgotten about it. However, seen as there has been much hype surrounding the book, I just had to read it asap. 

I realise that writing about an alien invasion is nothing new, however, the way it's written, the characters and the way the alien invasion takes place is brilliant. The book follows around three main characters: Cassie, Evan and Ben. Each chapter within the book moves between these characters but there are the odd chapters which don't. The premise of the book is that our main characters are waiting for the 5th wave of the alien attack. Cassie is currently living in the woods until she decides to finally go and rescue her brother. On the way, she is shot and wakes up in a house with a boy named Evan. The other character, Ben, is currently inside a base with the military and is being trained for going out in the field to fight the aliens. 

The blurb of this book doesn't give too much away and I don't want to either. Although it doesn't actually say 'Alien's' anywhere on the blurb, nearly ALL reviews I read before reading this book tells you it's aliens and you find this out almost straight away when reading the book. My main reason for enjoying this book is the characters and the way in which the 'waves' take place. I found this to be different to other stories of a similar genre. Cassie tells us how the four waves hit being going back through her story rather than leading up to where she is now. The characters which are introduced into the book as you read in makes you think 'ah it's so and so from such a place' and makes you put the pieces together as you read along. Though sometimes you think, 'Ah, I get it now', sometimes I wasn't always 100% sure as to who is who. 

Yancey does well in the way he writes about the character Cassie, as I find a lot of books that I read have mainly male characters as their main ones when the writer is also male, and vice versa for female writers. This was a nice change. Overall, very well written and some original thought put into the storyline which made all the difference as a reader. Very fast paced once you are drawn into the book and easily read in a few sittings. I didn't want to put this book down!

Happy reading :)