The 5th Wave – Rick Yancey.

Review of new YA alien invasion the 5th Wave

The Passage meets Ender’s Game in an epic new series from award-winning author 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.

Is this the new Ender’s Game?

I rarely read book promo blurb before I read a book. I mean, I often read reviews from other bloggers, but I try to avoid the hype. So I was quite surprised when I went to check out the deals on this book and saw that it mentioned Ender’s Game. This story does have some echoes of it, which I’d noticed while reading, but they are superficial. Yes, you’ve got children and some training and aliens in the mix, but that is very much where the similarities end.

The main characters here are teenagers instead of young children. Which opens it up for some romance, which quite frankly felt like it had been shoe horned in to meet some target. You know, we’re putting together a post apocalyptic YA dystopian novel, we need guns, a feisty scrappy heroine who does more physically than could ever be expected while being a bit scruffy but still rather gorgeous, and we’d better stuff in a bit of cuddling because, well, they’re teenagers aren’t they? All they think about is sex.

Hm. I must have been more unusual than I realised. And if you’re desperately trying to track down your missing brother and 90% of the population has been wiped out I’m sure cuddling would be high on your agenda. Not.

But that isn’t actually the biggest bit of the story. Instead that’s a convoluted plot as to who precisely the enemy are. And the second viewpoint helps to build the tension towards the denouement. The finale is excellent and while there’s obviously room for a sequel, it isn’t left as a cliffhanger, which I always find extremely annoying.

Kept me up til 3 am – a riveting read

Given that I accidentally kept reading this until 3 in the morning, I think it’s safe to say that, quibbles about ill fitting romance notwithstanding, I thought it was a riveting read. Despite a certain stereotypical approach to the lead characters they are plausible and more than that, the underlying plot is sufficiently intriguing to keep me turning pages.

I will be interested to hear what the teenager thinks of it though. She is behind t’other half in the reading queue though 😉

Disclosure: I received a proof copy of this for review on Kindle via NetGalley. Book links are usually affiliate links – if you buy via my link it doesn’t cost you any more but I get a few pence.