The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

Submitted by Lucas, teen reviewer:

Rick Yancey, the author of The 5^th Wave, has also written The Monstrumologist along with The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp and various adult books.  Having started and stopped halfway through both of the books mentioned above, I approached The 5^th Wave with some hesitation.  As it turned out, this hesitation was justified.  Although I cannot fault Mr. Yancey’s writing style or plot, the main reason that I didn’t like this book was that it was very depressing.  Yes, it is true that when browsing through the YA section of the library one frequently encounters books with titles such as The Knife of Never Letting Go or The Morgue and Me, but this book ranks just under Holocaust books like Night or Maus on the depressing/disturbing scale, and only because it is fiction and they are not.

The basic premise of the story is that aliens want to colonize Earth, and to do so they must kill all humans.  To accomplish this task, they send waves of various attacks (the first wave (an EMP) disabled all human machinery/electronics, the second caused large earthquakes which killed about 3 billion people, etc.).  The book follows two major characters as they try to fight back and survive the 5^th wave.  Unfortunately, fighting back is difficult if you don’t know who your enemies are.

In conclusion, I would recommend this book to anyone who likes an intense story and a good plot; although I was able to predict most of the events, the conclusion caught me completely off guard.  They would also need to enjoy reading about fighting to survive in a hostile environment (e.g. the typical zombie apocalypse story), and most of all not mind disturbing and depressing novels.