Stella Reviews: The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

The Passage meets Ender’s Game in an epic new series from award-winning author Rick Yancey.

After the 1st wave, only darkness remains. After the 2nd, only the lucky escape. And after the 3rd, only the unlucky survive. After the 4th wave, only one rule applies: trust no one.

Now, it’s the dawn of the 5th 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 Walker 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.

Thank you RazorbillCa/PenguinCa for sending this ARC! :D

Review

First of all, I had a little laugh, looking at how many to people immediately marked The Monstrumologist as to-read, once they finished off with this book. Let me spoil the fun, by saying that book is not like this book. That book was an eye (haha) opening experience, and left me thinking while I laid down to sleep every night. That book was perfection, and this was a little sub-par.

I never expected to give this book less that five-sparkly stars. I mean, come on, it's RICK YANCEY. The Monstrumologist is one of my all-time favourite books and Will Henry remains one of my all-time favourite book characters.

I can see the appeal of this book and I understand why most people LOVE this book, but in my opinion, there are better books out there that offer more intensity, more betrayals and more heartbreak. The two books/series I am talking about is the Chaos Walking trilogy and Ender's Game.

First, I would like to talk about what makes the Chaos Walking trilogy a better substitute:

A: It offers superior alternating POVs, switching between male and female. When Patrick Ness ends one of the perspectives, he stops at somewhere that leaves you thinking, and you almost have to put the book down and reflect on life for a good five minutes. I think that occurred a couple of times throughout The 5th Wave, but most of the other times, it stops at a cliffhanger. Cliffhangers are great and they gets your heart pumping, but that is quickly sputtered out by the other POV, which is in its build-up phase. That excitement inflicted by the cliffhanger is sent into hyperpolarization, which is a term used to describe neurons in our brain. It basically means my feelings for this spiked, an now, as I see a new POV is beginning and it is in its build-up phase, I get bored. My feelings about whatever exciting just happened, drops. It drops below even the boredom of the incoming POV. Because I know I have to sit through ~30 pages before I get back to that cliffhanger. Pretend the Resting Membrane potential is me reading, and something exciting happens and action potential occurs, but the disconnection of the POVs puts me in to a screeching halt and drop into hyperpolarization.
This is the exact reason why I steered away from A Game of Thrones. The anticipation dies after George R. R. Martin goes through about 15 other characters (exaggeration) before coming back to the one I was really excited about.

I'm going to put more stuff about a neuron firing under the SPOILER tag.
[Observe a neuron firing below:

Playlist♥Giveaway: King's Crusade by A.D. Starrling

King’s Crusade

Seventeeen Series Book 2

AD Starrling

Genre: Supernatural thriller

The perfect immortal warrior.

A set of stolen, priceless artifacts.

An ancient sect determined to bring about the downfall of human civilization.

The exciting, action-packed follow-up to Soul Meaning and the second installment in the supernatural thriller series, Seventeen.

When a team of scientists unearth scriptures older than the Dead Sea Scrolls in a cave in the Eastern Desert mountains in Egypt, a mystery lost to the tides of time is uncovered. Heading the expedition is Dimitri Reznak, the Head of the Crovir Immortal Culture & History Section. But the monumental discovery is spoiled by evidence of looting and half the priceless artifacts Reznak has been seeking for centuries have disappeared.

Alexa King is a covert agent for the Crovir First Council. When she is approached by her godfather for a mission that could help elucidate the enigma of her lost past, she finds herself delving into the dangerous and shadowy world of secret religious societies. Assigned by Reznak to assist her is Zachary Jackson, a gifted human and Harvard archaeology professor.

In their search for the missing artifacts, King and Jackson stumble upon the existence of a deadly sect whose origins are as mystifying as the relics they are searching for. From North Africa to the doors of Vatican City itself, they unveil a centuries-old plan that aims to shatter the very structure of civilized society.

With the help of Reznak and a group of unexpected allies, King and Jackson must stop the enemy and uncover the astonishing truth behind the missing artifacts and King’s own unearthly origins before all is lost.

Smashwords     Amazon US ebook     Amazon UK ebook       Book Depository

Playlist

Hello and thanks for having me on your blog!  ♥

Today, I am pleased to present part of the music playlist for King’s Crusade, Book #2 of the supernatural series Seventeen. I say part, because the actual playlist has 61 songs on it! I’ve chosen my favorites and explained how they relate to the scenes in the book. You have been warned. They are LOUD! 

1.    Warrior by Disturbed

To me, this first song defines the protagonist of King's Crusade. Those lyrics send shivers down my spine and set the pace and flavor for the entire story. I had this on constant replay when I was writing the final battle scene!

A (Sponsored) Fashion Giveaway: Firmoo Sunglasses

Firmoo is the World's Most Popular Online Eyeglasses Store with 580K+ fans on Facebook. Their mission is to offer varieties of unbelievable cheap yet fashionable prescription & Plano eyewear to the consuming public. All of their eyewear is directly from affiliate factory, so the price is 85%~90% lower than that in the traditional brick-and-mortar stores. 

Follow Firmoo on Twitter and Facebook.

Note: I didn't receive anything from Firmoo except for emails ^^''. The sunglasses below are what I thought I would look best based on the pictures, style, and Firmoo handy-dandy online sunglasses tester. <---Haha, I got obsessed with it.

Interview (Vlog Style)♥Giveaway: The Savage Blue by Zoraida Cordova

A storm is coming...

The ocean is a vicious place. Deeper and darker than Tristan could have imagined. Beneath its calm blue surface, an ancient battle is churning —and no one is safe.

In the quest for the Sea Throne, Tristan has already watched one good friend die. Now he must lead the rest on a dangerous voyage in search of the trident that will make him king. But while Tristan chases his destiny, the dark forces racing against him are getting stronger, and the sea witch of his nightmares is getting closer.

Battling sea dragons and savage creatures of the deep, Tristan needs his friends' support. But they each have their secrets, and a betrayal will force Tristan to choose between his crown and his best friend Layla — the only girl he's ever loved.

Hiiii! Today I am sooooo honoured to have Zoraida stopping by for a Q&A session, what's cooler is that she did it in a vlog form!! Awesome! If you didn't know, I loooovee The Vicious Deep (the first book in the series), I myself did a horrible vlog review of it....aha...go check it out if you want here. Anywhooo~ Let's get started with Zoraida :D

Interview

Giveaway

Now time for the epic giveaway! At the bottom of the post you will see the prize packs, super awesome right? So why wait, enter now! :D

ARC REVIEW: The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

The Passage meets Ender’s Game in an epic new series from award-winning author Rick Yancey.

After the 1st wave, only darkness remains. After the 2nd, only the lucky escape. And after the 3rd, only the unlucky survive. After the 4th wave, only one rule applies: trust no one.

Now, it’s the dawn of the 5th 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 Walker 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.

First, I would like to thank RazorbillCa/PenguinCa for sending this ARC to me. I know I am SUPER lucky and am REALLY sorry at how long it took for me to finish. >/////////< Second, all the quotes are from the ARC and not the finished copy so they are subject to change. Now on to my review.

REVIEW
Note that this review is in bullet form, and each bullet doesn't connect to the previous nor later one...haha my mind is too jumbled for connectivity right now. :P

• What is the most amazing thing about Rick Yancey? It is ability to connect to the readers. You know those memes or posts on the internet that describes something that just makes you "YESSS! I DO THAT!!!" or "YESSS! I TOTALLY GET YOU!!!", well that's what Rick Yancey does in his book. There are sentences that just makes you go "YES!" and you completely agrees with him. He just seems to help readers get their words out. I mean a lot of the times I wouldn't ever realize that's how I feel until he mentions something and I am sitting on the couch shouting "OMG YES! THAT'S SO ME! HOW DID YOU KNOW?!". Rick has the ability to let readers see what links them all, reminding us that we share a lot of the same feelings and thoughts. It just amazes me how he can literally take words out of my mouth.

• Short Chapters...me gusta. I like breaks between a lot of things and I reaaallllyyy enjoys short chapters. I can put a book down and go do some other stuff and come back. I don't really have an obligation of 20 page chapter. BUT that meant it became easier for me to stop reading. GOSH! IT TOOK WAAYYYY TOO LONG FOR ME TO READ THIS BOOK!!! I am soooo ashamed. I'll just stab myself in the corner now.

• What's different about this book compared to other apocalyptic YA novels? This book actually had build-ups, background information instead of super fast pace, "let's dive right in" kind of plot. A good half of this book was background, which Rick wrote it in a way that I didn't mind. Some books, like The Archived, also took a while to developed, but for me The Archived was not building but rather dragging on the plot. I felt like for The 5th Wave, it was a necessity to write the first part, the development. That's why I found this book pretty amazing. It is hard to write a book with a build up and still keep readers' attention. There was this part before the 20% mark of the book that literally torn my heart open. I just bawled. It was such a shock to me, I DIDN'T expected it AT ALL. It felt like I was shoot and just couldn't breath. And at other parts I felt like I was in a swat team, super intense and just EPIC! I was like "damn, I am so cool". Power of Rick Yancey, brilliant!