Review – The Last Star (The 5th Wave, Book 3) by Rick Yancey (3/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Post- Apocalyptic
Length: 368 pages
Publisher: Speak
Release Date: May 23, 2017
ISBN-13: 978-0142425879
Stand Alone or Series: 3rd volume in The 5th Wave series
Source: Bought
Rating: 3/5 stars

“The enemy is Other. The enemy is us. They’re down here, they’re up there, they’re nowhere. They want the Earth, they want us to have it. They came to wipe us out, they came to save us.

But beneath these riddles lies one truth: Cassie has been betrayed. So has Ringer. Zombie. Nugget. And all 7.5 billion people who used to live on our planet. Betrayed first by the Others, and now by ourselves.

In these last days, Earth’s remaining survivors will need to decide what’s more important: saving themselves . . . or saving what makes us human.”

This was the final book in The 5th Wave series. It was okay but in my opinion the weakest book of the series. It ends fairly open-ended and in general it’s confusing what is going on here. There are spoilers ahead for books 1 and 2, so proceed with caution if you haven’t read those ones.

At the end of the last book you find out that there are no aliens just humans who have been brainwashed to fight each other. So in this book you have a combination of people who think they are aliens and then people who know everyone is a human. However, then things are twisted around again and there is talk that maybe some of the humans who think they are aliens are actually alien consciousnesses in human bodies. Are you confused? So am I.

While I love some of the imagery Yancey uses and love his unique writing style for different character voices…in general this story was just badly explained. The way it is presented is confusing and hard to follow; I even tried to stop re-reading parts and just “go with it” in hopes at some point I would have a clear understanding of what was happening here. That didn’t happen.

In addition to the confusing storyline I struggled with character names. A lot of the names are similar and every characters is called by multiple different names (their first name, their last name, their army name). This is probably my fault for reading these books too far apart. But keeping the characters straight was confusing.

This book jumps between many different characters as well, which I found to be a bit jarring. I know I am complaining a lot here. I loved the first book in this series soooo much and just found this one to be very disappointing.

Overall this was an okay book. There are parts that are beautifully written and I loved the imagery and writing style throughout. However the story was just plain confusing, the ending left a lot to be desired, and the characters were hard to keep track of and engage with. I feel like after the first book everything about this series went downhill.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge
– Flights of Fantasy Reading Challenge
– YA Reading Challenge