As I was working hard to procrastinate working this weekend, I found myself reading “The 5th Wave” by Rick Yancey, as reading a book was the only excuse my mom would accept for me not doing homework. I had high hopes for the book since it has already been made into a movie, and although I did enjoy the book and I would recommend reading it, Yancey’s style of writing took some getting used to.

“The 5th Wave” is an apocalyptic novel about the world coming to an end via aliens. While an alien apocalypse novel does sound extremely cheesy, the aliens featured in this book are anything but that. They are intelligent, ruthless and merciless. Instead of bringing destruction with flying saucers and laser beams, they bring it through five waves of destruction. The waves range from global power outages to tsunamis, and each one is more devastating than the last. Although the humans are no match for the aliens and their capabilities, the main characters of the novel decide to put up a fight anyways, and the storyline follows their battle.

Now, here is where the book begins to get confusing, so bear with me. There are two main characters in this book, Cassie Sullivan and Ben Parish. Although this doesn’t seem too difficult to grasp, as many novels have two protagonists, the point of view suddenly switches between Cassie, Ben and a few other characters each chapter without notice.

Although this method of telling the story can be difficult to get used to, he does make it clear which character is narrating. I encourage anyone who picks up “The 5th Wave” to look past the uncomfortable nature of Yancey’s writing style, as it actually makes the story more interesting. By having the novel narrated by the different characters, the readers are able to get to know each character better.

Without doubt, I would recommend this book to everyone. It is slightly slow at first and Yancey’s writing style can feel unorthodox, but the novel appeals to many different tastes. It has action and military plotlines for the guys, some romance for the girls and compelling themes throughout for the analytical readers who read classics for fun.