The 5th Wave

Tired of corrupt governments and plagues starting your apocalypse? Why not give aliens a whirl? In a concept that worked great for Independence Day, The 5th Wave features aliens who are out to destroy all of humanity. They're going about it the right way, too, in waves. The first two waves were literal: An EMP wave that took out all of Earth's technology, and the second was a tsunami that devastated coastal regions. The third wave was a strain of bird flu that wiped out huge chunks of the population, and in the fourth, most insidious wave, the aliens started moving in. There's just one problem. They look just like everyone else. After her father is killed and her brother is kidnapped in the fourth wave, sixteen year old Cassie is determined to find him. Meanwhile, Cassie's school crush Ben is being trained as a super-soldier to fight the impending 5th wave, and no one knows when the aliens will strike next. And can Cassie find her brother before it's too late. The 5th Wave is filled with pulse-pounding cinematic action, like Independence Day or Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Cassie is a witty, smart, girl-next-door sort of heroine that is a lot more relatable than many of the post-apocalyptic heroines of YA literature, and the alternating viewpoints through which the story is told paint a harrowing picture of her world. With a little romance thrown in, The 5th Wave is a refreshing twist in a sea of dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction.