The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

457 pages

"After the first wave, only darkness remains. After the second, only the lucky escape. And after the third, only the unlucky survive. After the fourth wave, only one rule applies: Trust no one.

Now it's the dawn of the fifth wave, and 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, Cassie believes, until she meets Evan Walker. Beguiling and mysterious, Evan may be Cassie's only hope for rescuing her brother--or even saving herself. But Cassie must choose: between trust and despair, between defiance and surrender, between life and death. To give up or to get up." -Dust Jacket

This is an interesting story. The idea of aliens wiping out humans in waves is interesting. The first wave wipes out the electricity, the second is natural disasters, the third is a devastating virus and the fourth is infiltrating humanity. The fifth wave involves indoctrinating children and turning them into soldiers. They're definitely thorough in their takeover of earth. The story shifts point of views between Cassie, Evan, and Ben. It kept me up really late one night as I couldn't put it down until it was finished. I liked the writing style and the sarcasm.

This one comes with a big BUT though. These types of books are mostly for young adult readers and there is a ton of language, including 3 or 4 "F" words. It wasn't just an occasional word, it was pretty in-your-face at times. I hated that. I hate getting sucked into a story and having to wade through language because I want to see how it ends rather than not read it, which would have been the right choice. My kids asked me if it was a good book and I had to give them the answer that I hate because it justifies it: "Yes, but..." It's like a "do as I say, not as I do" thing as I try to encourage them to stop reading books if they have junk in them. So, good book but there is a huge asterisk in recommending it. I will probably read the other two books but reluctantly. The nice thing is that in a month all of the books will be out so I don't have to wait for them.

{Spoilers}
Cassie has survived and lost her parents. Her brother is taken away with other children to a "safe haven" called Camp Haven. Cassie spends the book trying to keep her promise to find her brother, Sammy, who's 5. Her high school crush, Ben Parrish, meanwhile is at Camp Haven where he recovers from the virus and then is trained by who he thinks are human soldiers to fight the enemy. His squad consists of children. The youngest is seven, until Sammy is put in his group. They're given special equipment that helps them determine who is infected and and who is healthy.

Evan helps Cassie recover after being shot in the knee. Turns out, Evan's the one who shot her and is the one who's been hunting her for a long time. He's a Silencer, an alien assassin. The alien was implanted in him when he was a baby and awakened during the first wave. The aliens don't have a physical form but are more like a conscious being. They've all downloaded themselves into the master computer when they left their planet and so Evan's alien was uploaded into his brain when he was in the womb. So, he's human and not human. He has all of Evan's memories of growing up and his family. Evan falls in love with Cassie and can't kill her. He chooses to help her and turn against his own race. Cassie figures out who he is and is torn between the desire to kill him and the fact that she loves him too.

Ben figures out what's going on when he's sent out on his first mission. His squad wears a visor that lights up people with a green or red dot. They're tasked with killing people who are green but the people who are green are actually the ones that haven't been implanted by the aliens. Ben and Ringer, a squad member, cut out their implants. They've realized after finding one of their sergeants shooting at them from the rooftop, that their implants can be used to kill them with the simple push of a button.

Ben decides to go back to Camp Haven and get Sammy ("Nugget") and then escape. Cassie is also on her way to Camp Haven to rescue Sammy. Evan has told her that Camp Haven is the aliens' main base and provides her with a way to get in and out. Of course that plan goes awry. Cassie cuts her hair so she can get away with looking a lot younger and she's picked up by a school bus and processed by the aliens. While being connected to an alien program called Wonderland, which maps a person's brain, she attacks the doctor and goes in search of Sammy. She and Ben find Sammy at about the same time and Evan shows up to help them. He gives them a way out and then tells Cassie that he's going to do something. He promises to find her. That something is blow up Camp Haven with the aliens' own bombs. Ben's team helps them escape the destruction but you don't know if Evan made it out.