Review: The Infinite Sea by Rick Yancey

 It has been a long time since I've read The 5th Wave and I found it surprisingly easy to slip back into the storyline. The Infinite Sea was an easy pick up from where The 5th Wave left off and with every event in The Infinite Sea reminding me of the events in the first book, I felt like I didn't have to read it again to be able to get the most out of this book.

With the prologue demonstrating the danger of the 5th wave, it gave me as the reader an insight into the power that the aliens hold. It also meant that with later events in the book, I, sadly, knew the dangers that the protagonists were in and it had me on the edge of my seat because I recognised the danger when they didn't.

Having the book told from many different perspectives was something that I really enjoyed from the first book. It meant that I got to see how all of the stories interconnected and also left me on lots of cliff-hangers because just as something major happened the perspective would switch and I would be left wondering if my beloved characters would be okay. It made me want to not put the book down until I had reached the end, but unfortunately life often gets in the way.

I really liked how in this book Cassie became less dependent on Evan. She was still waiting for him, but she grew to realise that she shouldn't let him control what she does and that she shouldn't hold everything out because she's in love with a guy. The thing with a lot of young adult novels is that as soon as the guy and girl meet she gives up everything and loses her personality and it was nice to see in this book that that changed.

Ringer's character development was one that really had my hooked. In the previous book we had seen how her upbringing affected the person she became, but in this book we got to see how it could be used against her and how her emotions could change everything. I grew to like her more as a character because she opened up for the first time and it was a beautiful and sad thing to see.

This book as a whole was simply amazing because we were only allowed to discover things as the protagonists were and so when they did discover those things we felt every emotion that they felt. Many people describe the emotions they feel as a rollercoaster because of the pressure they feel and how it has many ups and downs and I would agree with the first point when talking about his book, but I wouldn't talk about ups and downs. Instead I would talk about sharp turns that throw you so far to the side that you think your body might become implanted in the plastic; that was how this book made me feel.

Obviously no book is perfect and there are two main things that I would think could be improved. Firstly, more sentences than I would have liked started with connectives. It was not as bad as it is in some books these days and I understand why it was used in some place for dramatic impact and in speech, but apart from that it shouldn't have been used and more than anything it annoys me that a big publishing company such as Penguin would pass over such things.

Secondly, I would have loved it if the book was slightly longer. Compared to the first book it is quite a bit shorter and maybe this is just me wanting to read more about this world than I should, but I felt like the length of the book let it down in some ways. I wanted to look more into each scene and character, something which more words on the page would allow.

I am very excited for the final book in the trilogy now and I hope it lives up to the expectations I have from The 5th Wave and The Infinite Sea.

(Goodreads parallel)