Publisher:
Penguin
Release
Date: 7th
May 2013
Edition:
UK proof,
review copy
Other
Titles by this Author: The Monstrumologist, The Curse
of the Wendigo, The Isle of Blood, The Final Descent (10/09/13)
The
1st Wave
Took
out half a million people.
The
2nd Wave
Put
that to shame.
The
3rd Wave?
That
took a little longer,
Twelve
weeks... Four billion people.
The
4th Wave
You
can’t trust that people are still people.
The
5th Wave?
No
one knows.
But
it’s coming.
There’s been a crazy amount of
buzz surrounding The 5th Wave over
the last few weeks, and though I really enjoyed it, it sadly didn’t blow me
away like I was expecting it to.
Rick Yancey melded the post-apocalyptic
and sci-fi genres really well and thinking about it, where aren’t they mixed in
this way more often? An alien invasion would be the end of our world as we know
it, after all. I think that jumping into the middle of take over instead of
joining the characters just before was really effective and it mean that there
wasn’t any jump between the genres. It was also just generally refreshing to
have some background on the world to go on straight away; there was tension and
fear as to what was going to happen next before I even opened the book.
The
5th Wave surprised
me with more than just the effortless blend of genres: I definitely wasn’t
expecting multiple narrations. Cassie launches the novel and she’s the main
character, but a few other voices pop up and then Zombie becomes a dual
narrator and I was thoroughly surmised by this. Definitely in a good way, of
course; you guys all know how much I love dual narration. Cassie and Zombie are
very different characters and their stories complimented each other perfectly,
showing very different sides to the effect of the invasion.
Rick Yancey delivers a
beautifully written novel that breaks genre boundaries and makes you fall in
love with his characters and yet I still didn’t fall head over heels with it
like everyone else seems to have done. Maybe it’s because it took me so long to
get through or maybe it just caught me at the wrong time because there is
nothing I can think of to criticise about the
5th Wave so it must be me! It’s clever and unexpected and I really
wish I had fallen for it.
This is an incredibly difficult
book to review and keep spoiler-free! All I can say is go and read it and
discover The 5th Wave for
yourself and then join me in the wait for book two.
Thank you to Penguin for sending
me a copy for review.
Sophie
Oh, it's sort of like you just don't know why you didn't go mad for it. Maybe because everyone else is? I loved it.
ReplyDeleteI'm slightly worried about the hype being TOO MUCH when it comes to this book. I bought it on an absolute whim weeks ago when everyone was raving about it ... and I haven't picked it up yet because I feel like I need some time for expectation levels to simmer down into something more reasonable.
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