The Fifth Wave/The Infinite Sea by Rick Yancey

Alright, I know this is a review mainly for the second book in this series but I will be covering things from the first book and I won't be spoiling EITHER of these books for anyone. I just wanted to get that out of the way in case any of you were worried about that. This post will also be comparing the first book to the second a lot, so that's just a warning. So, really quickly, the first book is about a girl named Cassie Sullivan who is living through an alien invasion which is coming in through waves, and she is experiencing the fifth them. She lost almost all of her family and is now fighting to keep what's left alive but she gets separated from her little brother and now has to find him before either of them die.

That's the plot in a nutshell. I have to say, right off the bat, I didn't enjoy this book as much as everyone else did. Granted, I did read this book over a year ago now, which is why I won't be going into detail about this first one, but I remember thinking that the hype around it wasn't worth it. Don't get me wrong, I really liked the book but it took me a while to get into it and even when I did, it wasn't as amazing as everyone else said it would be. I will say, the writing of this book was amazing. That's the one thing I think everyone can agree on. The plot was interesting but it definitely took a while to get the ball rolling for the first book.

I think that's what got me about The 5th Wave, it was very much a book meant to set up the rest of the series so there was a lot of ground work to set down but I wasn't done in a typical fashion. Normally, the book starts out with the main character's everyday life and then BAM! something will happen but this book tosses the reader right into the middle of the action. It's not that it's a bad thing, in fact, many of you guys may like that, but personally, I like seeing the contrast of where the characters begin prior to the mess they get into and where they end up after the whole fiasco is over. That's also why I tend to like the first book in a series the most or at least have a certain appreciation for it is because there is a certain charm that goes along with introducing the world, characters, and normalcy. I thought the beginning of this book was really dragged out and meant to set up what's yet to come and that's what it did but it took me a while to really enjoy the first book.

The SECOND book on the other hand, was a lot better to my unpopular opinion. Since all of the set up of the first book is out of the way, we jump straight into the action and I loved that. It was a lot more fast paced than the last book and a lot more entertaining to me. There were also a lot more character interactions in this book which were really interesting. The banter of this book was so fun to read. Even the parts that I thought would be boring to me weren't. Yes, there were times that I thought some scenes were boring but for the most part, this book kept me way more engaged than the first. The one thing that I will say didn't really sit well with me was the fact that I thought one thing specifically would bother Cassie way more than it did. It should have been really emotionally inpactful on her but it had no affect on her at all!

Overall, I enjoyed the second book way more than the first and I'm super excited for the third and possibly last book in the series (I'm not sure if it will be a trilogy or go past three books). The 5th Wave gets 4 out of 5 stars and The Infinite Sea gets 5 out of 5 stars.