Reviews with content warning for War - The 5th Wave

For the most part, I preferred Cassie's POV. I thought the action concerning the soldiers was often lacklustre (and, regrettably, think the movie did some things better...). However, the author did a good job of portraying such a devastating reality. The question of 'how do you even defend a planet against something like this?' was always on my mind.

Even though the romance was built on shaky grounds, I generally enjoyed it and some scenes were very cute.

I wanted to read the sequels until I saw the summaries and found them strange, so I'll likely stick to just The 5th Wave.

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optimisms's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.75

Sigh.

This is getting exhausting. All I want is a YA dystopian that doesn't suck. Is that too much to ask?

I picked this up once, almost 10 years ago, and read a few chapters before growing bored and forgetting about it. Since then, I've wanted to go back and read it but it was never high on my TBR list. The only reason I've read it now is because none of the audiobooks I wanted were available immediately, but this one was, and I thought, "It can't be too bad, right?"

Wrong. This book is bad. Not bad enough to warrant just 1 star but...bad. One of the worst books I've read in a long time.

Initially, I was going to try to write this chronologically, but it just became a rambling incoherent rant so I'm structuring it like I have for a few others:

Things I sort of liked:
- The character of Zombie – to a point. I liked seeing his side of the story, with the military setting, the friend group, the training sequences. It's very reminiscent of the feel of "Ender's Game", though it doesn't do it nearly as well; it ultimately just made me want to read "Ender's Game" instead (which I promptly did!).
- The invasion & first four waves are kind of boring but interesting enough. It's also a bit nonsensical, though – for instance, why go to all the effort to create the tsunamis first if the flu kills 97% of humans anyway? There's not really anything original. To paraphrase a review of the movie, "It's science fiction with none of the ideas."
- The first 30% was a solid 3 stars to me. Nothing amazing, but entertaining enough. We had two promising main characters with a lot of potential to drive the plot forward and make an interesting story. I was hopeful that as the action picked up, so would the plot and my enjoyment. Alas, it was not to be.
- The one good twist. Most of the twists in this book are laughable, so obviously telegraphed that I would barely call them twists. But there is one twist I enjoyed,

when Ringer takes out her tracker and turns green on the scanners. The larger twist – that the military is actually Evil and they've been Tricked – sucks, but this little reveal of how the scanners work was done well and was pretty intense.

Things I disliked:
– Cassie is boring and so is her family (also, of course her family likes to read, it wouldn't be a YA book without a self-insert for the reader). Her skill set is questionable – as someone with a black belt, her references to karate made me roll my eyes. And actually, all of the characters are boring, even Zombie. No one really has any personality to speak of.
- The structure of the first 20% is bizarre. The book starts in the present for a few chapters, toys with a few small flashbacks, and then suddenly jumps completely to the past and stays there, working up chronologically back to present day. But because we've already seen the present, nothing in the past is surprising.

Cassie already told us her father is dead, we cannot trust other humans because they could be others, and her brother is missing, so it is no surprise at all when the soldier shoots Crisco, and then the military kills her father and takes her brother without her. It reads like it's supposed to be a twist but it's just not. I thought it was a really strange choice and I don't know why an editor didn't make Yancey change that. It would've been way better if the story started in the refugee camp, with a little exposition/flashbacks on Waves 1-3, and then saw the fourth wave play out with no idea what was happening.

- The scattered attempts at teen-speak. These were so cringey. No one, no one talks like that. It was mostly a problem with Cassie, which just made it feel like she was a caricature of what Yancey thinks teen girls are like. It felt sexist and infantilizing.

Things I hated:
- The love story. The insta-love. I honestly can't think of a YA love interest and couple that I hate more than I hated reading this. During the first section of Cassie's POVs with Evan, I really considered DNF-ing, which I have literally never done on purpose. That's how much I hated it. The minute Cassie meets Evan, the book takes an immediate nosedive. The writing itself would be right at home in r/menwritingwomen. Cassie's characterization completely devolves as she becomes emotional to a fault, illogical, too trusting, and above all, horny. Literally as soon as she meets him, she's talking about how he's just so beautiful and handsome and strong. She even has a paragraph where she says, "I can't decide which of his features is best: his chocolate brown eyes, his strong hands, his soft lips, etc etc etc." It was so incredibly obnoxious.

Throughout the book, we've seen her rely so heavily on her intuition that she killed at the mere suggestion of a threat, but now she constantly ignores the clues and the feeling that something is seriously off here, just cause he's hot. There are moments when she catches him in a lie, confronts him, and openly states she doesn't believe his answer, but still she stays with him for reasons passing understanding. It's absolutely ridiculous.

- Evan is simultaneously the perfect guy and the world's biggest creep.

He can do everything: shoot, hunt, cook, bake, give medical care, hack into the mainframe, blow up the entire base, whatever the story needs him to do. But he also stands outside her door without saying anything. He changes and bathes her while unconscious. He reads her diary. He constantly lies to her, manipulates her, pressures her, so she'll believe whatever he says. There's even a scene where she is actively not consenting and he completely ignores her: he kisses her, she says, "Don't kiss me," so he kisses her again, and she says, "If you kiss me again I'll knee you in the balls," so he turns off the lights and starts making out with her on the bed. Um. Okay. That's not romantic – that's assault. Oh, and don't forget he's the one who shot her and almost killed her in the first place, but then he didn't for literally no reason because she's the protagonist and she's just oh so special that he couldn't bear it.

- This book seriously stretches the boundaries of what is believable and realistic. The story is thick with plot armor and ridiculous contrivances. Of course

99.99% of people died in the first 3 waves yet Cassie's brother, father, and crush are all alive

. Of course

Evan is a skilled and experienced killer but for literally no reason at all, he just can't kill Cassie, cause she's just so special and amazing

. Of course

Sammy gets randomly assigned to the exact same squad as Cassie's crush, who just happens to take him under his wing

. Of course

the man who killed her father is the head guy; it would be boring if she didn't have a personal connection to the guy at the top

. Of course

they run into Dr. Evil himself as they're escaping, nothing can be simple here, no matter how much I want this book to be over

. Of course

Cassie's crush survived the Waves; she already has a boyfriend, but how could we have a love triangle in Book 2 without Ben?

- The logic of the 5th wave is either completely non-existent or else so incredibly convoluted that I can't make any sense of it. I can't be bothered to figure out which it is.
- The ending just sucks. It's so boring. There's nothing surprising, nothing interesting. It goes on way too long. There's a deus ex machina – two, actually. I cannot express enough how much I didn't care what happened to anyone.

So...yeah. I have no big conclusion. Don't read this book.

Content Warnings

shaylastoler's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

I loved this book! This book is separated into different selections each with different pov's. We first get a look at Cassie's pov, who survived the 4 waves of the apocalypse with her brother and father. During the 5th wave, she got separated from them and how she did is revealed in flashbacks while she trys to survive on her own. All the while, there are still aliens out there, hunting down the few remaining humans.

Content Warnings

collegestudent2822's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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