The Infinite Sea

So, what did I think of The Infinite Sea?



I want to leave it at that, but Cannonball Read has some stupid word minimum for reviews.



Goddamn it. Anyway, a friend saw I was reading this and asked how I liked it. I said, “I’m about 2/3 of the way through and so far, nothing has happened to justify its existence.â€ù She said, “High praise indeed.â€ù But it’s true. The Infinite Sea fails to do what any competent sequel does, i.e. expand the universe and raise the stakes. Off the top of my head, here are some of the most egregious moments:

1) The title is meaningless. In The 5th Wave, “the infinite seaâ€ù was a crowd of child soldiers. In this book, it refers variably to snow, tears, unconsciousness, show more and blood. In the Harry Potter books, there were not multiple Sorcerer’s Stones scattered about willy-nilly. If you want to ascribe some importance to your book’s title, do not waste it on describing a field of wheat. (Which, by the way, happens in the prologue.)



2) Important characters like Ben and Sam have been reduced to cardboard cutouts in favor of Cassie, who is now the equivalent of nails on chalkboard. While I appreciated her will to survive and her morbid sense of humor in the first book, now she’s judgmental, self-righteous, catty, and possessive. Evan hasn’t changed much, which is to say he still has his annoying habits of speaking in enigmas and passing out whenever he’s asked a pressing question. Cassie and Evan’s infatuation with each other, which I was already puzzled by, is even more intense now. These two should just cake on some eyeliner and scribble emo song lyrics on each other’s skinny jeans.



3) Ooh, speaking of the lovebirdsâ€_ I was wrong. There is no love triangle in this book. There is a fucking love hexagon.



4) A minor character dies in a way that just leaves me with this lasting bad taste in my mouth. To be clear, I’m not talking about the usual grief or shock. At least when J. K. Rowling killed off a character, she had some purpose behind it. This book has one of the most unconscionable, horrifying character deaths I have ever seen. The way this character was treated like a plot point throughout the book, and then the way their murder is framed as an act of loveâ€_ No. Just, no. I can’t.





5) There is no new information as to why the aliens have taken over Earth and why they are using the waves. Their approach certainly raises doubts about their capacity for logic. Why do beings without physical forms need to occupy a planet? Why watch humans evolve over thousands of years when you can stamp them out right at the beginning? These questions are asked but are never answered, other than humans suggesting, well, maybe they just like to fuck with us. And you cannot propel your plot just by withholding information from your reader. It is frustrating beyond belief. I guess there is one revelation that could be considered a plot twist, if you stretch it, but to me it was just one more instance of the aliens’ sadistic mindfuckery.



So, I should end this rage-y review by saying something nice, namely what prevents me from rating this fucker one star. Number one, Poundcake. His backstory and the reason he never talks broke my heart. Number two, Ringer. She was the real badass of The 5th Wave and Rick Yancey should just hand over the rest of the series to her. She actually goes and gets shit done. Good for you book, I don’t entirely regret reading you! show less

"That’s the cost. That’s the price. Get ready, because when you crush the humanity out of humans, you’re left with humans with no humanity.

In other words, you get what you pay for."

The Infinite Sea is the second book of The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey. The story picks up within days after the events in book one. Cassie and the rest of the kids have holed up in a dilapidated hotel to plan their next move and then the story stalls. All the momentum built up at the ending of the first book is lost and the story plods along for the first third of the book until the plot finds itself again and the reader is immersed back into the post-apocalyptic world of alien invasion.

Yancey does a better job of identifying which character's chapter show more we're in so it is less confusing to have multiple first person points of view as more characters are explored in this book. Poundcake and Ringer are given their own chapters. The story behind why Poundcake never speaks is explained as is Ringer's childhood. Cassie and Evan, while having their own chapters, take more of a back seat this time around, which suited me fine since their romance is the aspect of the first book that annoyed me the most. Through part of Evan's back story we're introduced to Grace, another Other who has a minor role to play. Ringer, though, is turned into quite the bad ass. I love her logic. It is Ringer that asks the important questions and starts to work through those things that just don't add up. It is also Ringer who figures out more of the Other's over all strategy.

Once it gets going, the action is intense. Philosophical and psychological effects that the Others are having on humanity is explored through the thoughts of the characters. The romance, while still there, is greatly downplayed.

Overall, The Infinite Sea was a good sequel. It changed my perspective on things that happened in the first book. The story doesn't move forward very far but it does set things up for what is to come. show less

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.

Okay, not as BAM! Mind blowing as the first, but wow. I still hit the ending and wanted to cry (I was >
The writing has great movement. A bit of humour thrown into the darkness to keep it from being too dim. More things that make you go, what? wait? huh??? You think for most of the book that there isn't much more mind-fucking he can do after the first, that he's dropped all the bombshells there are to be dropped. You'd think that, but you'd be wrong.

I'd say be prepared to start thinking like you're one of the characters, gauging the value of a single life against what is going on, and start questioning just what you'd do in their shoes.

Damn fine book. Damn fine. ...now to run off and begin the third!!

"Self-centered, stubborn, sentimental, childish, vain. I am humanity. Cynical, naïve, kind, cruel, soft as down, hard as tungsten steel. I am humanity."

This book hurt my feelings.

And I thanked it.

Completely completely in awe of Rick Yancey's ability to create amazing characters and plotting that leaves me unable to put his books down for a second. This picked up right where The Fifth Wave left off, and carried our characters for a nail-biting ride. It's especially effective the way Yancey doesn't necessarily always deal in surprises... it's not that a bad guy jumps out of the closet on every page. Rather, that he reveals the insidious next threat long before it gets to our favorite characters, and we're left in suspense as Cassie, Ben and the gang try or fail to figure out the threat.

Loved the continued romance between Cassie and Evan. Wished we could have gotten more of them. The Ringer/Razor storyline was especially effective show more and for me, even better than Ringer/Ben. Can't want to see what happens next. 5/5 stars.

Please excuse typos. Entered on screen reader. show less

I was trying to figure out what age these books are aimed at, because part of me thinks maybe they're aimed at a younger audience and I'm juding them too harshly, but ... they're pretty brutal, the main characters are young adults and there's even sex in this one, so I'm guessing they are probably YA lit after all. It doesn't really read that way.

I'm torn between 1 and 2 stars, because the first book was better, in a way, but it's not AS bad as some books I've one starred. This rating system is tricky.

Nothing happens in this book. I had hopes for it, I liked that we immediately got Ringer's POV (I like her sooo much better than Cassie), and I thought we were going for some REALLY interesting unreliable narrator thing with Cassie ... but show more no. The unreliable narrator thing just seemed like weird way for the author to write the same scene twice. Honestly, did you he write this during NaNoWriMo? NOTHING HAPPENS, but there are so many words. The first 200 pages is fucking 90% Cassie going over the same things in her head OVER AND OVER AGAIN. I get it, you're torn, your feelings for Evan are complicated, blah blah. I skimmed most of her thoughts after a while.

The timeline is also all over the place. The first 200 pages takes place during a few days, the last 100 during a few weeks, but they are PARALLELL stories, so we have no idea what happens to the other characters during those weeks. I assume that'll be for book three? Either way it makes it seem like the two parts are barely connected.

Especially since, at the end of the story, the characters are basically back to where they at the end of the last book. The only person who goes through even a bit of change is Ringer, but even her story was way longer and more complicated than it had to be. The aliens claim to have some big master plan, but I don't see what it is, and there's gonna have to be one hell of an explanation at the end of book three for me to buy any of this.

Plus it keeps switching between first and third person. Even weirder than that, Cassie's POV is suddenly entirely in past tense, but Ringer's is in present. In the last book, I think everything was written in present tense, so why this change? Is the author experiementing with different POVs and tenses? I don't understand, I really don't.

Will I read the third book? Maybe. If I haven't forgotten about this entire thing by the time it comes out. show less