What Is The Climax Of The 5th Wave
The 5th Wave was an engaging story, featuring a witty central character, mystery, anticipation and a romantic story line.
Yancey sets up the world perfectly and there’s little fault to be found there. The narration is introduced by Cassie, who tells the reader of her life before the aliens came and the 4 waves that subsequently wiped out most of the human population. Her story, like the many others shown later, is not a happy one. She’s suffered the death of both of her parents and the separation from her 6 year old brother, Sam. I quite enjoyed her as a main character and found her humorous despite her grim situation. Her fierce determination to save her brother from the unknown horrors built just the right amount of anticipation to keep …show more content…
me turning page after page.
One thing I didn’t expect was the multiple narrations: The Silencer, Zombie and Sam. I’m surprised that I actually liked this style as normally it throws off the story. I thought it was pretty clever in the beginning. The way it switches back and forth, implanted a certain amount of doubt to the point where there were times where I wasn’t sure who was actually human or alien.
Still all of that just wasn’t enough to keep away my rising disappointment. You see, The 5th Wave and I had a very interesting reading journey and I think I about expressed all of my emotions while reading it. There was the beginning where I’d learned about waves 1-4 and how horrifying they were. I was disappointed that they didn’t get explained that well, and I wished the storyline had more focus on it.
Then, Sam is taken away, Cassie is shot in the leg and I’m not sure if she’s going to make it. And some Other Stuff happens, like a bunch of people getting all killed off at once, and I found myself flipping pages super duper fast. I couldn’t wait to find out what the 5th alien wave actually was.
But that’s when things start going downhill for me, because all of a sudden there’s this weird insta-love romance that was, IMO, not done well at all. I get that Yancey was going for the whole “What really makes us human?” thing with this book. And having Cassie and The Silencer fall for each other was supposed to emphasize that, but c’mon. The whole “I shot you in the leg because I couldn’t bare shooting you in the head. Can’t you see I’m in love with you?” bit started sending off major weirdo vibes. Dare I say it? Yes, I think I shall. If Edward Cullen were an alien whose mission was to kill off remaining humans, but he instead falls in love with a girl, he would be The Silencer. The romance developed way too fast and had such a strange start (with The Silencer following her through the woods, reading her diary, going through her belongings and shooting her in the leg) that I just could find myself getting on board with it.
It was such a strange turn of events. One minute there’s death, carnage and a struggle for survival and the next minute Cassie’s in this farm with a guy who resembles Clark Kent from Smallville and he’s baking her bread. This is also that part where the narrative changes really started to become jarring because we also were keeping track of Zombie (a nickname for the character in the novel). Every time we were in his point of view, I felt like I was in the midst of playing Call of Duty. So from going back and forth from those very different scenarios, I had to take a small break and ask Teddy a very frank question: “
SPOILERS AHEAD: But I went back to reading because I really wanted to see what this 5th wave was all about. Unfortunately, that turned out to be the most disappointing aspect of the novel. Up until I found out what the 5th wave was, I thought these aliens were pretty badass. They came to earth with a plan and they knew exactly how to kill off humans very effectively.
1st Wave: Take out human technology – Humans rely heavily on this for almost everything. I’d take this out first too.
2nd Wave: Natural disasters – You can easily wipe out most of biggest cites by taking out the coasts with tsunamis.
3rd Wave: Plague – One of the most effective way to kill off a bunch of people: poison them with disease.
You don’t even have to do much here. Just wait for them to die off.
4th Wave: Silencers (basically, think snipers) – Pick off all the survivors.
5th Wave: Kidnap all remaining children, including toddlers, nurse them back to health, feed them, train them military style and send them out to kill all the adults who they think are aliens but are really human. (UMM. What?)
The aliens had a good thing going for them. Every thing made sense up until the 5th wave. But why would they go through so much trouble for the 5th wave? The Silencers would have been just as effective or even more so, considering how fast they could take people out. They are faster, stronger, can see in the dark, etc. So, what’s the point in wasting resources and years to train human children to kill human adults?
My final verdict: The 5th Wave is definitely a page-turner and has plenty to offer a reader who enjoys science fiction. Even though the romance fell flat and the plot’s logical inconsistencies kept me from dishing out all my stars, it was still an enjoyable read. But despite the very strong start, ultimately, The 5th Wave didn’t live up to the hype for
me.
Yancey sets up the world perfectly and there’s little fault to be found there. The narration is introduced by Cassie, who tells the reader of her life before the aliens came and the 4 waves that subsequently wiped out most of the human population. Her story, like the many others shown later, is not a happy one. She’s suffered the death of both of her parents and the separation from her 6 year old brother, Sam. I quite enjoyed her as a main character and found her humorous despite her grim situation. Her fierce determination to save her brother from the unknown horrors built just the right amount of anticipation to keep …show more content…
me turning page after page.
One thing I didn’t expect was the multiple narrations: The Silencer, Zombie and Sam. I’m surprised that I actually liked this style as normally it throws off the story. I thought it was pretty clever in the beginning. The way it switches back and forth, implanted a certain amount of doubt to the point where there were times where I wasn’t sure who was actually human or alien.
Still all of that just wasn’t enough to keep away my rising disappointment. You see, The 5th Wave and I had a very interesting reading journey and I think I about expressed all of my emotions while reading it. There was the beginning where I’d learned about waves 1-4 and how horrifying they were. I was disappointed that they didn’t get explained that well, and I wished the storyline had more focus on it.
Then, Sam is taken away, Cassie is shot in the leg and I’m not sure if she’s going to make it. And some Other Stuff happens, like a bunch of people getting all killed off at once, and I found myself flipping pages super duper fast. I couldn’t wait to find out what the 5th alien wave actually was.
But that’s when things start going downhill for me, because all of a sudden there’s this weird insta-love romance that was, IMO, not done well at all. I get that Yancey was going for the whole “What really makes us human?” thing with this book. And having Cassie and The Silencer fall for each other was supposed to emphasize that, but c’mon. The whole “I shot you in the leg because I couldn’t bare shooting you in the head. Can’t you see I’m in love with you?” bit started sending off major weirdo vibes. Dare I say it? Yes, I think I shall. If Edward Cullen were an alien whose mission was to kill off remaining humans, but he instead falls in love with a girl, he would be The Silencer. The romance developed way too fast and had such a strange start (with The Silencer following her through the woods, reading her diary, going through her belongings and shooting her in the leg) that I just could find myself getting on board with it.
It was such a strange turn of events. One minute there’s death, carnage and a struggle for survival and the next minute Cassie’s in this farm with a guy who resembles Clark Kent from Smallville and he’s baking her bread. This is also that part where the narrative changes really started to become jarring because we also were keeping track of Zombie (a nickname for the character in the novel). Every time we were in his point of view, I felt like I was in the midst of playing Call of Duty. So from going back and forth from those very different scenarios, I had to take a small break and ask Teddy a very frank question: “
SPOILERS AHEAD: But I went back to reading because I really wanted to see what this 5th wave was all about. Unfortunately, that turned out to be the most disappointing aspect of the novel. Up until I found out what the 5th wave was, I thought these aliens were pretty badass. They came to earth with a plan and they knew exactly how to kill off humans very effectively.
1st Wave: Take out human technology – Humans rely heavily on this for almost everything. I’d take this out first too.
2nd Wave: Natural disasters – You can easily wipe out most of biggest cites by taking out the coasts with tsunamis.
3rd Wave: Plague – One of the most effective way to kill off a bunch of people: poison them with disease.
You don’t even have to do much here. Just wait for them to die off.
4th Wave: Silencers (basically, think snipers) – Pick off all the survivors.
5th Wave: Kidnap all remaining children, including toddlers, nurse them back to health, feed them, train them military style and send them out to kill all the adults who they think are aliens but are really human. (UMM. What?)
The aliens had a good thing going for them. Every thing made sense up until the 5th wave. But why would they go through so much trouble for the 5th wave? The Silencers would have been just as effective or even more so, considering how fast they could take people out. They are faster, stronger, can see in the dark, etc. So, what’s the point in wasting resources and years to train human children to kill human adults?
My final verdict: The 5th Wave is definitely a page-turner and has plenty to offer a reader who enjoys science fiction. Even though the romance fell flat and the plot’s logical inconsistencies kept me from dishing out all my stars, it was still an enjoyable read. But despite the very strong start, ultimately, The 5th Wave didn’t live up to the hype for
me.