The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

3 Stars

 

♪♫♪♪That's great, it starts with an earthquake. Birds and snakes, an aeroplane ♪♫♪♪
Okay, maybe just the aeroplane part. Like this . . . .



It didn’t take long for people to realize that . . .

“The arrival of the mothership was not the beginning, but the beginning of the end.”

Nope, the first wave was followed in quick succession by waves two . . .



three . . .



and four . . .



Leaving only the fifth and final wave before it truly is the end of the world as humans know it . . .



(Come on. You really didn't think you were getting out of an alien review without a little Goldblum did you????)

“How do you rid the Earth of humans? Rid the humans of their humanity.”

Obviously I’m super late to this party so there’s not a whole heck of a lot left to say. I’ll be totally honest and say I had a “been there/done that” attitude with respect to The 5th Wave for eternity and had zero intentions of reading it. Then the movie was released and it was my kids’ reward for being brainiacs (I know, hard to believe I’m actually raising NOT juvenile delinquents, right?) so I requested it from the library. Along with everyone else. Yeah, the kids saw the movie weeks ago but my turn at the book just now came around. I was lucky to not get spoiled (I mean AT ALL – I never even bothered reading the blurb) so I’m going to not spoil any of you and just briefly cover what worked and didn’t for me.

First question I was faced with was: Is it possible to enjoy a book while mostly wanting to murder one of the main characters? Answer? Surprisingly so. The world building in this book was off-the-charts good. I assume many have complained about it being too detailed, but it was just what I was looking for. AND HALLELUJAH TO A FEMALE LEAD IN A SUPERAWFUL NEW ‘MURICA TALKING ABOUT THE NEED TO STOCK UP ON TAMPONS. Finally! Praise Jeebus! That being said, unfortunately said female character also talked about a male MC’s eyes being “chocolaty warm – so melty and sad.” Excuse me a moment . . . .



Ahhhh. All better.

But as much as I’m done with the instalust bullshittery that gets thrown in to every YA story like this, I was able to keep on keepin’ on – mainly because there was a whole other cast of characters who were not idiots. And even though I could figure out what was coming and things sometimes seemed a bit too familiar . . .



I still had a pretty good time. If this is on your TBR, don’t give it the boot. 3 Stars for the simple fact that even though this is a series I could really give a rat fart about reading book 2.

“Review” (term used as loosely as possible) portion aside, let’s talk about casting choices for the film. Female lead is a wallflower with frizzy hair that no one has ever given a second glance to. This I love because at least the “oh I’m plain but errrryone magically falls in love with me” Bella Swan syndrome wasn’t in play. However, the film version looks like this . . .



Wallflower my fat ass. I guarantee this chick has old men the world over Googling her birthday to make sure Dateline doesn’t show up at their door.

Which leads us to the boy she worshipped from afar all throughout high school . . .



Srsly? I don’t get it. Also note that I had to Google him because I thought he was like 14 playing the part of a 16 year old.

Which leads us to the other guy who is pretty hearthrobby . . .



Except for the whole “melty chocolatey eyes” thing. Whoops.

I haven’t yet watched the movie, but I will say I hope to shout it focuses on the action and no the luuuuuuuurv.

Generally Sh3lly and I end up reading porn the same thing because she pushes me down and won’t let me up until I submit to her. This time it was just coincidental (probably because we are the only people left on the planet who had not yet read this. I like that she shared my opinion of the punchability factor contained in the character Cassie and yet was still able to enjoy the book as a whole. See kids? No need to rage out about everything just because some stupid stuff was thrown in to the mix.