Review – The Infinite Sea (The 5th Wave, Book 2) by Rick Yancey (4/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Post-Apocalyptic
Length: 352 pages
Publisher: Speak
Release Date: November 3, 2015
ISBN-13: 978-1101996980
Stand Alone or Series: 2nd book in the 5th Wave series
Source: Bought
Rating: 4/5 stars
“How do you rid the Earth of seven billion humans? Rid the humans of their humanity.
Surviving the first four waves was nearly impossible. Now Cassie Sullivan finds herself in a new world, a world in which the fundamental trust that binds us together is gone. As the 5th Wave rolls across the landscape, Cassie, Ben, and Ringer are forced to confront the Others’ ultimate goal: the extermination of the human race.
Cassie and her friends haven’t seen the depths to which the Others will sink, nor have the Others seen the heights to which humanity will rise, in the ultimate battle between life and death, hope and despair, love and hate.”
This is the second book in the 5th Wave series. It was an enjoyable read but I didn’t like it as much as the first book in the series. I felt like not much happened in this book and was a bit disappointed that we didn’t hear from Cassie much.
Like the first book, this book is told in sections and each section is from a different POV. Much of the book is told from Ringer’s POV this time. We also hear from Evan quite a bit. There are some random small sections from other side characters as well. For example we here from Poundcake about his past (which I felt was very manipulative given how quickly his situation changed).
The book starts out with Evan MIA and Cassie and crew trying to find a safe place to stay for a longer period of time. The book doesn’t progress a ton from there. We do find out Evan’s situation but our characters never really make progress on finding a safe haven. Quickly the story completely leaves the majority of our characters stranded while we delve into a side story about what happened to Ringer and Teacup.
As with the the first book (which ended up revealing that aliens were living in human hosts) this book also ends with a big reveal. This reveal was again a huge out-of-nowhere reveal that actually made me roll my eyes more than being surprising. The whole thing was very formulaic and this book felt like it was following the exact same plan and pattern as the first book.
The book is a fast read with lots of edge-of-your-seat action scenes. I do enjoy the characters in here and find them engaging. The writing is well done and very descriptive; this makes it fun to read and easy to picture the surroundings.
Overall this was a good continuation of the 5th Wave series but it wasn’t great. I felt like with all the jumping around between POVs the story didn’t actually progress much. I also felt like we really shifted from following Cassie’s story to following Ringer’s and I just don’t enjoy Ringer as a character much. This was an action-packed and engaging read; I was just disappointed at the progress. I plan on finishing up with the last book in the series, The Last Star, soon.
This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge
– Flights of Fantasy Reading Challenge
– YA Reading Challenge
