Review: The Infinite Sea by Rick Yancey

The Infinite Sea

Author: Rick Yancey

Genre: Post-Apocalypse, Aliens, YA

#2 in the 5th Wave trilogy

Series: The 5th Wave (#1), The Last Star (#3)

Plot:

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.

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Review:

Disappointed. So very, very disappointed.

So far, all I've read are amazing reviews praising this sequel to hell and back, saying it's even better than the first one, etc etc. Let me tell you, I finished reading The 5th Wave with a feeling of "Hot damn, that was fucking good." But alas, it was the sort of novel that you think was really good upon closing the last page, but with time and when thinking about it in greater detail a few weeks later, you start to realize that wait ... it's actually not even that great as you first thought it was. I truly wasn't even anticipating this sequel that much, and maybe it was all the hype that I've picked up thus far, all the praise, but it seems I was set up for a story far greater than the one I was ultimately given. A friend of mine, Tori, read the book before me and she only told me her impressions ("OH MY GOD", "WHAT WAS THAT", etc.) and those made me REALLY curious, but I've been sorely let down.

The plot was uneventful and boring, dragging up until past the halftime mark until the ball really starts rolling, the characters are, for the most part, lame and dull, if not outright annoying in some cases, and the plot twists, revelations, whatever you want to call it, make so little sense I am just like ???? What the fuck?

The annoying case I am referring to all comes down to Evan and Cassie, I want to say specifically Cassie but honestly, something about Evan rubbed me the wrong way the whole novel, too. What is that, you ask? The guy is freaking indestructible. He has risen from the dead like, four times now or something. I am calling fucking shenanigans, that is major BS. No. That kid does not fucking have nine lives. If you know me, you know that I have major issues with the faux death card, if you're gonna off characters, then they should damn well stay dead. And Cassie, Cassie ... just... I ... no.

"Before electricity, they measured brightness in candlepower. The light down here was about one half of one half of one candle."

Also called a fucking quarter.

"I was never good at history, but I was pretty sure douchebags like Hitler didn't laugh very much."

"He found himself in me, and then I found him in me and I was in him and there was no space between us."

"Why don’t you tell me," I shot back. "You extraterrestrial slut."

The other characters, Sammy, Dumbo and Poundcake are insubstantial and flatter than a board. Ben was okay, but ... I don't know, man, he was better in the first book. Teacup, ugh. Don't get me started on that. Ringer was the only good thing about this book. She knew how to take care of business, badass motherfucker that she is. 

The romances are for the most part weird and unfathomable to me, like, I still think Evan is a fucking creep, I still want Ben to end up with Cassie and not Ringer, and while I shipped Ringer with this new character for a while, even that got extremely weird later on where I'm just like "lol nope."

I will probably read the final book, just to satisfy my curiosity that still wants to know how it's all going to end, but honestly, I'm not counting the days.