Module 8: The 5th Wave

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Book Summary: The book begins with Cassie wandering around in the woods with her M-16 and her brother's teddy bear. She kills a soldier in an abandoned convenience store, and it's unclear whether the soldier is really on her side, and even what the two sides are. The book sort of continues to do that, moving back and forward in time for awhile, until we learn about the alien invasion and the first four waves (wave one was killing the power all over the world, wave two was an earthquake/tsunami that devastated the coastlines, wave three was a virus that killed most of the rest of the population, and the fourth wave was the silencers among the living, shooting anyone they could find). The book also alternates between Cassie's story, as she tries to find and rescue her brother, Ben's (nicknamed Zombie) story as he is trained to be a soldier, and a couple of other insertions, including the point of view of a silencer and Cassie's little brother as he is taken into what we are led to believe is a refugee camp. It is later revealed that the refugee camp, a former military base, is really being run by the aliens and training humans to kill other survivors out in the world. Meanwhile, Cassie is taken in by a young man who rescues her from the frozen forest after being shot, and we learn that he is actually a silencer who has fallen in love with her. He reveals the story of the aliens, who came to Earth because they needed a new, inhabitable planet, and implanted themselves into certain humans because they had to leave their own bodies behind. He helps Cassie infiltrate the base, and he ultimately destroys it. Cassie finds her brother at the same time Ben, who has gone rogue with his squadron after learning what the base really is, has gone back to rescue him (they met earlier in training at the base). The three of them get out just in time, are picked up by the rest of the squadron, and get away. The books ends right after they make it to safety...or, what is safety for now.

APA Reference:
Yancey, R. (2013). The 5th wave. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers.

Impressions: I loved this book and am excited to continue the series. There are so many sci-fi/dystopian young adult books and series coming out these days that they've become almost contrived and even formulaic, but I thought this story was a fresh take on the genre and could be enjoyed by readers of all ages. There was a love story, but it wasn't overdone and didn't overshadow the central storyline, which I hate. I also thought it was interesting how the book begins near the end of the fourth wave, and we learn about the first four waves through the reflections and flashbacks of the characters. If the author had tried to begin the series with the first wave, the story would not have moved as well, and the central themes may have been lost. I was also really impressed by the way the story kept the reader guessing, as far as who the good guys really were. I suspected that Commander Vosch was not good, of course, after the massacre at Cassie's refugee camp, but Ben's trust and faith in him made me question if it was Cassie who really didn't know what was going on. The way the book forces the reader to put the pieces together until the very end was well done and enjoyable.

Professional Review (from Horn Book Guide):
"Cassie, sixteen, prepares herself for the fifth wave of aliens, the final takeover, fearing that she may be all that's left of humanity. She's alone until she meets 'very good-looking' Evan Walker, and together they must figure out how to fight back. Yancey vividly portrays Cassie's existential crisis in a broken world: how to live, and why to live, and what to care about."

Yancey, Rick The 5th wave [Review of the book, The 5th wave by R. Yancey]. (2013). Horn Book Guide, 24(2), 137.

Library Uses: I think this would be an awesome book to use as an introduction to a lesson/unit on survival skills. Visitors could be brought in to give lessons or demonstrations on survival, living off the land, and/or primitive camping. Students could share their ideas or do projects on what they would do in the event of an alien apocalypse. This book could also be used to partner with science classes to explore what, if any, real science there is in the book. Of course, the aliens' technology is purely made up, but the "eye" used to decimate entire areas of land, the tracking devices, and the "Wonderland" program used to see humans' memories could all be jumping off points to learn about real technology in these fields, artificial intelligence, robots, advances in technology, etc.