The Infinite Sea Review

    In order to kill off the human population, you need to kill the part of them that make them human- their humanity. After the first four waves, Cassie found herself in a world in which people can't trust other people. Now, with the approach of the fifth wave, she, Ben, and Ringer must accept the true goal of the Others- exterminating the human population- and figure out how to survive. They don't know how far the Others will go to accomplish this goal; however, the Others don't know how much this group of humans is willing to fight.

    Keep in mind that everyone has their own opinion. This review is only my opinion, and you may have your own, different one. I would take into consideration what I say, but do not make a decision about the book solely based off of this review. Let's begin:

    I enjoyed the first book, but I didn't love it. I feel pretty neutral to this one. Many authors will say that the second book in a trilogy is the most difficult. They sometimes turn out pretty mediocre because of this difficulty. Unfortunately, this book has fallen into that second book rut in my opinion. I didn't hate it, but didn't really like it either. 

    I will give the same warning I gave with the first book: this book is split into multiple perspectives, so if you don't like that or get confused easily by it, this book may not be for you. I personally think this helps this specific book. Unfortunately, it still does not tell you which perspective you are switching to, leaving you to figure it out. This is fairly easy, but it took me a page or two sometimes and I would have preferred this not happen.

    The four main characters in this installment are Ringer, Ben, Cassie, and Evan. The only one that I really liked was Ringer. Her perspective was the most interesting one. Cassie seemed to be put a bit more to the side for this book, but still had her time in the spotlight- it just felt a bit boring. Evan annoyed me because a couple of things that happened with him are really unrealistic (even with him being who he is) and I am really hoping they are explained in the last book because I do not like the twist with him. I don't think it makes any sense, and I would have liked what happened with his character a lot more without it. Ben also got annoying because he seemed angry/whiny almost the entire book. The novel always says how little kids are the new adult, even going so far as to call Ben ancient for his age, and yet he acts more immature than the 5 and 7 year olds with how much he can't seem to move on from the last book and do what has to be done. Maybe that is me being harsh and maybe I should be more understanding of his situation, but everyone else in the book seems to have dealt with what happened by now.

    I was fairly bored for a lot of the book. There were scenes here and there that got me more into it, but the first 75% of the book was not too entertaining in total. The last 50 or so pages were where things actually got really interesting and captivated me. Those pages and the twist with the Others were honestly what rescued the plot for me. I almost feel like this book wasn't really necessary and the author could have summarized it in about 100 pages in the beginning of the third book, making it a duology. Also, I was a bit confused sometimes at what exactly was happening. This may just be me, but I feel like I wasn't vibing with the writing style this time. Maybe that is why I got confused every once in a while?

    Overall, I feel pretty meh about this book. Ringer, the last 50 pages, and the Others twist were what balanced out the things I considered negatives to make a careful neutral. I will be reading the third book because I am invested in the trilogy now, but I do not feel any rush to like I would normally at this point. 

Rating: 3/5 stars (-1 characters: annoying, -1 plot: boredom and some slight confusion)

Author: Rick Yancey

Publisher: Putnam Juvenile

# of Pages: 320

Genre: YA, Science Fiction, Apocalyptic (Aliens)

Series: The 5th Wave (Book 2)