First They made all electrical things shut down. Then They caused a tsunami that wiped out all the coastal cities. Then They caused a plague that wiped out 97% of Earth’s Population. Then They started coming to Earth in the shape of humans. What’s the Fifth Wave going to be?
Cassie, her younger brother Sam, and her dad are the ones in her small family that survived the Third Wave. After her mother died, Cassie’s father decided to move the family to one of the refugee camps. The camp was taken by the military who moved the young children to Camp Haven and then once the kids were on the bus killed all the adults in case they were the “Others” or aliens in the shape of humans. 16 year old Cassie survived, with her brother’s bear, and lived in the woods for a time. When she traveled back to the highway full of the stalled and useless cars, she is shot. Evan Walker nurses her back to health at his house, but is he really just the helpful stranger that he seems to be?
Ben Parish used to go to Cassie’s high school. He lost everyone in his family due to raiders after one of the Waves, and almost succumbed to illness. However, he survived, and is now in Camp Haven working with the new army. The military is creating an army of children, children that definitely are not others, to go and fight the aliens that are hiding in the real world. He is one of the several older members of the group, around 17 years old, but some of the members of the army are as young as 5, such as Nugget/Sam Cassie’s brother. He has to find a way to bring this rag tag group together so they aren’t punished in the army and so they can survive this apocalyptic world.
Can I please say, that Cassie was one of THE MOST ANNOYING female characters EVER. I mean really. I get it, she’s a teen, she had a crush for years on a boy named Ben Parish, she wished she’d admitted her feelings. Blah Blah Blah. I can handle that. But when the world is literally going to end fairly soon, and she hasn’t seen the boy in months, don’t you think there are priorities? She feels as if she is the only person left on Earth, but instead of trying to learn as much as she can in order to figure out how to fix/rebuild the things she may need to survive longer, she is daydreaming about a boy. And then when another, rather shady, boy heals her, she is falling for him too almost immediately! Like seriously, I don’t mind romance, but my waking thoughts wouldn’t be wasted obsessing overs some guy if humanity was in danger.
On the other hand, Ben was a really strong character. He was the glue for everyone as the world was falling apart. He helped the younger ones not be so scared all the time, and brought his team together. Heck, he didn’t even know Cassie, but surely he had some type of girlfriend back in time, but he didn’t obsess over her. Nope, he was more worried about the task at hand, surviving the army and helping humanity.
Other than these annoying bits, I rather enjoyed the story. If Cassie had been less boy-crazy, I would probably rate this book higher. But when a girl is more worried about a boy who didn’t even know she existed than losing both her father and mother and possibly brother in less than 6 months, then I have a bit of a problem. I thought the overall storyline was unique, and I will definitely keep reading the series. Cassie seemed to have improved some by the end of the storyline, and I hope that this continues throughout the last two books of the trilogy.
Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 books.
Oh I loved this book and the trilogy, even though Cassie was a bit annoying