Review: The 5th Wave

The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The story is interesting enough, I guess. It's funny: it's marketed as being like Ender's Game, The Hunger Games, and The Road, but it feels more like the author wanted
to make it like those, so he sloppily threw together a girl wandering the wasteland here, a camp for child soldiers there. When the quasi-Twilight love triangle started to develop, I almost threw the book down entirely. On the other hand, it's fairly entertaining at times and a pretty easy read, and I think my disappointment was augmented by all of the hype and advance marketing the book got.

I don't know what it is about teen books that they all start to feel the same, like they're written by the same mediocre, seventeen-year-old. Sometimes I wonder if "Teen" is just what publishers call books they've already committed to publishing that aren't good enough for the adult fiction section and happen to be about people under 20. I would just lower my bar for teen books, except that I've read great books geared towards young adults, and it would be a disservice to those authors to call this one-eyed man King.

If you're big into the Teen Adventure scene, or a fan of Rick Yancey, by no means am I trying to dissuade you from reading. If you're a reader who likes to read a little of everything and got caught up in the hype for this book, just don't expect to have your mind blown.

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