Beware the Body Snatchers! (The 5th Wave)

 

Yancey, R. (2013) The 5^th Wave. New York, NY: G.P. Puntnam’s Sons

Spoilers ahead

Cassy Sullivan, real name Cassiopeia, is on her own, living in a tent in a forest.  She has to be on her own, it’s the only way to stay safe.  You can’t trust anyone.  Her only source of clean water is an abandoned convenience store down by the highway.  One day, a wounded soldier is there.  Or is he?  After a brief confrontation, she reacts and guns him down. 

It all started when they spotted the mothership.  For a while they wondered what they were here for, some like her dad, thought they were here to help.  They were wrong.  The attack came in waves.  The 1st wave was an electromagnetic pulse that turned off everything. The electricity went out, cars stopped working, and planes fell from the sky.  The 2nd wave took the form of a giant metal pole, dropped from space that upset tectonic plates to create giant tsunamis that wiped out coastal populations.  The 3rd wave was a deadly Ebola-like virus using birds as vectors.  This killed most of earth’s population, including Cassie’s mom.  After that, what was left of her family, her dad and little brother Sammy, went to a camp outside of town.  This is where the 4^th wave found them.  Soldiers came, they’re apparent saviors, and collected all the children on buses.  Then they rounded up the adults for a meeting. One person, a kid Cassie calls Crisco, is missing.  Cassie’s father convinces the soldiers to let her go find him, but they insist on an escort.  When they do find him, the escort immediately shoots Crisco, and Cassie shoots him.  The rest of the soldiers kill all the adults and blow up the camp.  Cassie is alone.  She promised Sammy she would find him before they took him, so she sets off to find him.  But someone is on her trail. One of the alien-humans , whom Cassie calls a Silencer, finds her and shoots her in the leg. 

The point of view changes to that of the Silencer.  He’s torn between his alien and human sides.  Turns out he’s been stalking her for a while, but hasn’t yet killed her.  He still can’t.

Cassie is rescued.  She’s found, bandaged and raised back to health by a young man name Evan Walker. His behavior is a little strange.  He is too calm, and has an answer for everything.  Eventually Cassie gets over it, and they even have some romantic entanglement.  He decided he is going with her to rescue Sammy.

In the Meantime, in a refugee camp outside Patterson Air Base, Ben Parish is dying of the plague.  He is saved though by some soldier from it.  They heal him up and train him up, as well as many of the other children rescued, to be soldiers meant to fight against the alien menace.  Ben, AKA Zombie, becomes squad leader.  Then a small boy, Nugget AKA Sammy, becomes part of his squad.  He becomes very protective of him. After graduation, Zombie’s Unit, minus Nugget, gets sent out to eliminate some “bugs.” Things don’t seem quite right though.  One of the people shooting at them doesn’t show up on their “bug” viewer.  After Ringer takes out her tracker, she lights up as a bug. They deduce that the people training them are the real aliens. This makes them the 5^th wave.   Ben makes it his mission to save nugget. 

Ben hatches a plan. Cassie hatches a plan. Nobody’s plan really goes right, but they wind up meeting in the middle of it.  They manage to save Sammy, blow up the base, and narrowly escape.

This book was pretty heavy. Don’t get me wrong, it was an action packed alien fighting adventure, but it was pretty emotionally draining too.  Most of it is pretty depressing, though it does get better towards the latter half.  I’m pretty intrigued about how they plan on winning the war. I’ll likely be checking out the two sequels in the future.  This is the first book I’ve read during my YA Lit class that uses multiple perspectives.  During the book, you will read from Cassie’s, Bens, and even The Silencer’s point of views.  It’s pretty neat, but sometimes a little disorienting.  Yancey doesn’t announce when he’s changing POV, he just does it.  It may take you a few paragraphs before you realize who you’re reading about.

I read this book because it is on 2014’s Best Fiction for Young Adults list.