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| A fab cover for a great book |
A long time ago, in a
coffee shop far, far away, several members of the YA reading group gathered to
discuss The 5th Wave by
Rick Yancey.
This book certainly
deserves the 5 stars that we awarded it, and, in my opinion, it deserves enough
stars to make up the Cassiopeia constellation itself. It was a fantastically terrifying
read that had us teetering precariously on the edge of our seats whilst simultaneously
feeling the need to chuck the book in the freezer and run a mile.
The 5th Wave follows Cassie Sullivan, a teenage girl alone in a desolate
world and on the run from Them. The ones who razed the cities to the ground, stripped
Earth of its inhabitants and killed its humanity. Survival is of the essence,
and when the choice is between giving up and getting up, Cassie Sullivan gets
up.
Some of the things that we
loved about this book were the intricacy (and complete awesomeness) of the plot
and the depth shown by the characters. Upon first reading the blurb, I thought
that The 5th Wave was
going to be a girl-meets-boy-they-beat-the-aliens-big-whoop-of-celebration kind
of book, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Cassie feels like an actual person instead of
a cardboard cut- out masquerading as one. Her reactions and views are
reasonable in relation to the world that she’s in and she behaves, dare I say
it, normally. No brattish cries of, “I’m destined to save the world!” or
anything like that. One of my favourite moments in the book is about 150 pages
in, purely because of Cassie’s reaction to her situation. *Grins * The other
characters in the book were also as developed and well-rounded as Cassie, each one
loveable despite their flaws.
I can’t go into detail about
why The 5th Wave has such
an amazing plot because that would involve major spoilers. Instead, you’ll just
have to trust me when I say that at the end of this book you won’t be able to
form coherent sentences.
Finally, we loved that
this book induced a flood of questions and conspiracies about what the heck was
going to happen in the sequel. There was many a fret about microscopic details
that could have huge implications for some of the characters. A while back some
of us actually met Rick Yancey (which took the word ‘epic’ to a new level) and
it was rather uncomfortably that we recollected his words about all of his
characters facing real danger and not being safe.
So go, read The 5th Wave and then join us
in the agonising wait for the sequel!
On another note, our pick
for next month is Undone by Cat
Clarke and we will be meeting on August 8th in Costa from 7pm-8pm.
Bye for now,
Rosie :P
ISBN: 978-0-141-34583-3
Title: The 5th Wave
Author: Rick Yancey
Publisher: Penguin Books
Rating out of five stars: * * * * *
Rosie, this post is AWESOME!!!! You are an utter STAR!! I may need to clone you for my brain...
ReplyDeleteKaylie :0)
Awh, thanks :)
ReplyDeleteI've only just read this (late to the party as usual) but I agree with everything you have to say. I can't wait for the sequel! If I lived on the right side of the M25, I'd come along to your next meeting. Instead, I'll just keep a lookout for your review.
ReplyDelete