It isn't bad, but I just felt like it was more average than I expected and I was let down for a bit. Good but not great. Sure, it's exciting and the pages kept turning, but I just didn't feel like it did anything for me. It was missing something to make it really special and stick with me. I admit I'm so tough on books these days because I realized how some reads could mean so much personally or at the very least expand my imagination, and I turned away from new releases and series because they stopped doing that for me. "Entertaining but I forgot about it afterward" just didn't cut it, even if I didn't have any quibbles with the actual books when I read them. However, I do have more issues with The 5th Wave, so this might be a step below that level.
The beginning was tough to read simply because, for me at least, the descriptions of mass destruction were really disturbing. I didn't want to imagine and live in a world where there was a likely chance everyone I loved and myself had died. But after Cassie's first section of the novel it all got a bit ordinary. I can't say I'm the biggest science fiction fan, but I have seen my share of alien invasions with The X-Files and Doctor Who. Nothing in this book really surprised me. In fact, it seemed to cram as many alien tropes in as possible, and as a result caused some problems. I still don't know what the aliens are doing and why they are doing it. If they haven't had a form for years and were "downloaded" into humans, then how and why is there a mother ship? What if some of those hybrid alien-humans were by the sea, would they have been wiped out by the 2nd wave? How were these kids not suspicious when these adults had all this tech when this book takes place in 2013-14 (evidenced by the prequel being set in 1995)? [Yes I realized "the aliens left it" but still, they seem too advanced to let that slip.] What do the aliens want, anyway? Please tell me if I missed something.
Now, of course an argument can be made that the actual plot is just window dressing for character development, or for examining how the characters respond to their situation (aka The Buffy Method). Viewed this way, I would say the book preformed mildly well, although I personally did not feel too invested in the characters (Except Sammy. Don't you dare kill Sammy.) and I was so confused to what was going on in the background that I wasn't sure how to root for the characters overcoming their situations. Also, for a section of the book the romance seems to stray away from Cassie's drive, but I'll get to that later. Still, I did like the promises to save Sammy and I really enjoyed the climax where all the storylines came together.
Let's talk about structure, because this book has an interesting one. It took me a bit to get used to, but once it turned into alternating sections of Zombie and Cassie, it was fine. At first, though, it was a bit odd, because we aren't told that this is someone else and we have to figure it out. What I mostly found strange was that the Silencer and Sammy, who each narrate once, were written in third person instead of first like the rest. I could understand the Silencer because he was an alien, but Sammy? Yancy did a good job writing a five-year-old's point of view, he might as well have made it first person to be consistent and not appear that you just can't get inside a five-year-old's head (because isn't every other account of a five-year-old in third person?).
The book is written in present tense, which I'm not a huge fan of because it always sounds funny to me at first, but I get used to it. It was a bit strange in places in this novel, though, because it was hard to figure when everything took place. For example, when we switch to Sammy's POV, we're reading something that happened before Cassie's narration began the book. I was honestly not sure if what Zombie was experiencing happened at the same time as what Cassie was narrating. (Not to mention how confused I was about the crazy technology.) Also, in the first section Cassie uses past tense to tell about the first four waves, which is fine except when it said "Now I was watching him through the kitchen window," which is some sort of past present and doesn't quite work. In Zombie's narration the same thing happened: "'We're going to be the first squad to graduate.' And I'm right." But he can't have any knowledge of the future!
I also found Zombie's side of the story more interesting than Cassie's when he got to the crazy training camp. Although, still, Reznik and Ringer were little more than one-dimensional. Meanwhile, Cassie gets bogged down with a romance subplot that sort of comes out of nowhere. She is constantly describing him from the moment she sees him. He kisses her and doesn't know why and she doesn't question it or talk about their relationship at all for quite a while or even feel awkward about it (like, really, Cassie's never been kissed before, what does she think about it and what are her worries?). Not to mention the narrative hasn't been kind to its tough heroine by physically hurting her and having her nursed to health by an attractive guy who then easily ends up in a relationship with her. How many times have we seen this? Worse, when she begins to question how he is dangerous (which she guessed from his soft hands of all things), we get your typical paranormal romance conversation about how he makes her feel human and he won't hurt her. Yes, I know it's science fiction, but Evan is still a deadly being and it's the same story once again.
I know I can come down hard on YA romance and it's not because I hate the genre, although I did avoid romance when I was younger because it was perceived as "girly" and I didn't want myself to be belittled as a result. But I'm critical now because I've experienced being in a teenage relationship, and I knew several other couples, and we all had more complex dynamics and our fair share of awkwardness and insecurities and discussions. Yet this book is hardly about romance, and it just feels thrown in to check a box and adds nothing insightful. Worse, the way it changes Cassie's character for the middle of the novel is almost insulting, and it almost is just padding until she's strong enough to find Sammy. It slows down the forward momentum that was there in the first section of the book.
So I'm debating whether I'll read the second book after it comes out...I was frustrated at times while reading it, but I'm still intrigued now that the smoke has cleared a bit after I read it. Perhaps more will be explained and I can properly get my head around it. And you know what? It's already going to be a movie...
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