The Infinite Sea, by Rick Yancey

(4/5 stars)

How do you rid the Earth of seven billion humans? Rid the humans of their humanity.

Surviving the first four waves was nearly impossible. Now Cassie Sullivan finds herself in a new world, a world in which the fundamental trust that binds us together is gone. As the 5th Wave rolls across the landscape, Cassie, Ben, and Ringer are forced to confront the Others’ ultimate goal: the extermination of the human race.

Cassie and her friends haven’t seen the depths to which the Others will sink, nor have the Others seen the heights to which humanity will rise, in the ultimate battle between life and death, hope and despair, love and hate.

After such an intense cliff-hanger in the first book, my patience to read The Infinite Sea was practically nonexistent. Especially since The 5th Wave was the very first review I ever did for this blog. The series has a special place in my heart because of that. But, like the first book, I had my ups and downs throughout the story.

What I liked: The darkness. This book is so much darker than the first, and you can see that through the setting, conflict, and characters. The character development is really well done. They still feel the same, but they're also so much more. They've grown into themselves and their situation without losing those traits that we love the most. Ringer has become my favorite. There's so much going on internally with her loyalty to Teacup and distrust and tension in her specific plot line. I still love Cassie, I will always love Cassie (but I will say, she did not get enough page time for my liking). The writing is well done, just like the first book, and there are moments when I had to put the book down and consider the depth to what Yancey was saying. Very impressive. 

What I didn't like: First things first, I love the title and metaphor that comes with it, but if you use it every other chapter, it loses its meaning. "Infinite sea" was repeated wayyyyy too many times and that bothered me like crazy. Another thing that bothered me was the irregular changes of point of view. It felt like multiple separate books (and yes, it is separated into Book 1 and Book 2), and just when things were getting good, the character's story disappeared from the rest of the book. I also didn't like that we had two characters written in first person, and then the other point of views were in third. It threw everything off for me. Lastly, until the end, I feel like nothing actually happened. Only Ringer's POV at the end moved the plot along. Everything else was just filler. They didn't even move locations. I didn't like reading about the group trying to figure out the next plan, all while these other predictable plot points happened. 

Like I said, I really enjoyed this book. There were so many positives and I'm obsessed with the characters, but I wish more happened. I liked the twist at the end of Ringer's story (ugh and I love Alex) but that could have been figured out in a much different way that made the characters more active. Instead, they're extremely passive and aren't the ones driving the story. In an alien invasion story, I think the characters need to be the one causing the plot to move forward. But I'm still excited to read the next book. Now, I just have to wait...

-Annie