Book Review: The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

If you haven't heard the talk and praise surrounding this book yet, let me tell you what you're missing. The 5th Wave debuted at #2 on the NYT best seller list and Tobey Maguire (yes the actor!) has bought the film rights. Pretty dang good start for a new series. Yancey isn't new to writing by any means, but this is his first YA book told from primarily a girl's perspective. And he did it well. Here's my summary:

Earth is under attack. A mothership of aliens has approached the planet and wave after wave, have decimated the human population. In the 1st wave they cut the power, in the 2nd they rose the oceans, the 3rd they sent the plague, the 4th they sent their sentries to kill anyone they found alive. Now what few have survived hunker down and wait for the 5th wave. Cassie lives by her #1 rule--don't trust anyone. Why? Because the "others" look just like us. She let them fool her once. She sent her brother away with what she thought were soldiers so he would be safe. Then watched as those soldiers massacred everyone around her. Now with everyone she loves dead, Cassie is trying to make her way to where she thinks they took her brother and the other children. But first she meets Evan. He saves her when a sentry shoots her. Something is off about him though and Cassie can't figure out what. Should she trust him? Meanwhile, her brother Sammy is back at an army base with other kids and a slew of soldiers. The soldiers are training them to fight the aliens. Sammy makes a friend in someone completely unexpected. Someone who like Cassie knows the truth about what's going on. Who plans to save Sammy just like Cassie does. So do they manage? Will the aliens win? But more importantly, what makes us human? When we give up fighting and trying to save one another haven't they already won?

**Not many books inspire me to open up a new (or old) word doc and start writing. This one did. It was well written with tons of suspense and horror and Cassie's voice was right on with what I thought a teenage girl's voice going through all that would be. I literally couldn't put this book down! Kids complained about needing things like food, clean clothes, my attention, and while they got those things, they got them fast because I needed to get back to reading! If you haven't already picked up this book, I highly recommended it! I already can't wait for the sequel (sadly it doesn't come out til next May).

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