The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

Book description taken from Waterstones.com:
'After the 1st Wave, only darkness remains. After the 2nd, only the lucky escape. And after the 3rd, only the unlucky survive. After the 4th wave, only one rule applies: trust no one. Now, it's the dawn of the 5th wave. On a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs from Them. The beings who only look human, who roam the countryside killing anyone they see, who have scattered Earth's last survivors. To stay alone is to stay alive, until Cassie meets Evan Walker. Beguiling and mysterious, Evan may be her only hope for rescuing her brother and even saving herself. Now she must choose: between trust and despair, between defiance and surrender, between life and death. To give up or get up. Cassie Sullivan gets up.'

So this is another one of those books that has been starting to create a bit of a buzz in the bookseller world and for good reason. Yes it's got a strong female lead fighting against the odds to survive. Yes by the end it has hints of a love triangle. Yes it's all apocalyptic doom and gloom. But it is also excellent!

Yancey writes very well. He builds the world brilliantly in a way that makes it completely believable. Like Cassie you are left with no idea who to trust or what is going on. Yancey creates high levels of suspense and tension. He writes characters that are compelling and exciting. He switches between characters to tell the story and for once there wasn't one that I was in a rush to get through to reach the more exciting characters (like Jacob in Breaking Dawn - yawn!).  They face a world that is unrecognisable and they face it well even though they are too young to be expected to bear a burden of this magnitude. Even though you figure out the truth behind Zombie and Evan's identities you still find that you second-guess your suspicions. You can't predict the ending because there are conspiracies everywhere along with action and excitement. The romantic element isn't the focus and so it isn't overdone with the result that it actually works really well.

I honestly didn't want to put this book down and if I had been reading a physical copy I would not have gotten any sleep that first night when I began to read it (unfortunately I was reading this on my phone which gave me headaches after a little while and so I had to stop).

This is one of those rare books that can stand up to the inevitable comparisons with The Hunger Games and come off well. In fact it does more than come off well. It can stand on its own. It is brilliant and one of those books that you should read this year if you like anything with a bit of a science-fiction twist even if you're not a teenager any more. I cannot wait for the next one!

I give it 10/10!

Title: The 5th Wave
Author: Rick Yancey
Publisher: Penguin
Teenage Fiction