The 5th Wave
- 496
- Pages
- about 9 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“The 5th Wave” builds to a second half that delivers one revelation after another, though some readers find the first half slow. Sixteen-year-old Cassie’s struggle to survive successive alien attacks is tense and dark for young-adult fiction, and the characters grow convincingly. It ends with questions open, as the first volume of a trilogy will, and those tired of post-apocalyptic teen stories will not be converted.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The 5th Wave is a young adult science fiction novel written by American author Rick Yancey. It was published on May 7, 2013, by G. P. Putnam's Sons. The novel is the first in the 5th Wave trilogy, followed by The Infinite Sea and The Last Star. The story follows 16-year-old Cassie Sullivan as she tries to survive in a world devastated by waves of alien invasions that decimated the Earth's population.
Reading order · The 5th Wave
Full order & progress →- The 5th WaveThis book
7.57.5 / 10 - The Infinite Sea
7.47.4 / 10 - The Last Star
7.27.2 / 10
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.5 across 560 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 79% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Young adult average of 7.8. That is how 7.5 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.3 | 46 | 8% |
| Hardcover | 7.5 | 514 | 92% |
Frequently asked
What age is The 5th Wave for?
The 5th Wave sits on the Young adult shelf in the sources we use, which by convention means roughly ages 13 and up. This is a guide from the book’s category, not a publisher’s age rating. It has 496 pages — longer than 67% of the ranked books in Young adult.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Young adult — with scores between 7.5 and 7.6, closest to this book.
