My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I picked up The 5th Wave because it was yet another young adult dystopian fiction novel and I’m always looking for ‘sure things’ for the teens in my secondary school library. So I fully expected it to be predictable and smug about it. But it wasn’t! The twists and turns in the plot were unexpected and juicy! Our main character Cassie’s own biases and anxiety cloud her reliability as a narrator. From the start to the finish, I had a beautiful visual movie playing in my head so I can’t wait to see it come to the screen in 2016. I’ll be sure to pick the sequel as well.
The Infinite Sea by Rick Yancey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The Infinite Sea begins in media res as Cassie and her band of friends must pick themselves up from their last good deed in The 5th Wave. Having loved and lost Evan, Cassie’s emotions seem to be still divided between her brother and this new found will she has to see through the survival of the human race. Like the first book, The Infinite Sea keeps the reader guessing about the true ambitions of the invading alien race and there is a lot of action and many of the characters waffle between wanting to survive, and also making giant sacrifices to save each other.
Yancey never lets the reader forget that this group of hardened soldiers are actually brainwashed children who are living a nightmare. He mingles strategy with really human moments and I could not stop turning pages. I found both books to be very accessible despite the science fiction elements which require a leap of acceptance. The lexile count for both books is low enough for grade 6, and the characters are all school ages. I expect that these books will have wide appeal for most intermediate and senior students in my secondary school library.
