We’re here, then we’re gone, and that was true before they came. That’s always been true. The Others didn’t invent death; they just perfected it. Gave death a face to put back in our face, because they knew that was the only way to crush us. It won’t end on any continent or ocean, no mountain or plain, jungle or desert. It will end where it began, where it had been from the beginning, on the battlefield of the last beating human heart.
Master storyteller Rick Yancey invokes triumph, loss, and unrelenting action as the fate of the planet is decided in the conclusion to this epic series.
Source | Format | Pages | Publisher | Genre | Publication Date |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Amazon | ebook | 333 | Penguin | YA/Scifi | May 24th, 2016 |
Celebrate with me, folks… I have finished a series! I have so many book series I am halfway through and it’s great when I get to say- I am done and dusted with one of them!
If you’re a regular visitor to this blog, you have probably read my reviews for book 1 and book 2… If you have, you also know I loved those books! What was book 3 like for me? Read on, dear friend… read on!
The priest studies the dead man’s face, and his heart burns with rage and revulsion. The human face is hideous, unendurably grotesque. No need to hide his disgust anymore.
OK, so the book started off quite religiously (I even thought, please no, let’s not go the religious route here) and with a neat twist. I was so ready for this book, for this epic finale… but very soon, I found myself not as excited about The Last Star. The emotions I went through reading The Infinite Sea just did not surface!
The final book in the series is, simply put, action filled! It conveys the feeling of urgency in writing, in characters’ actions, in everything, and yet, somehow, the story didn’t move along fast enough. Honestly? In the few ending chapters, I found myself jumping paragraphs, thinking- yeah, yeah, we’ve been over this already, let’s just blow something up and be done with it. I felt like it was trying too hard to bring that deeper meaning into the story and it didn’t fit… not anymore… the bodies had piled up too high and the strong had met their breaking points.
I feel like The Infinite Sea was meant to create that unbreakable bond in between the reader and the characters, for that bond to stretch into the finale and yet, I didn’t get the same depth I was hoping for. I think the urgency around the action bled over to the deeper meaning I was looking for… and deeper meaning doesn’t mix with urgency. Deeper meaning takes delicate time and pondering.
You can’t trust God, either. Even God is a liar. He put rainbows in the sky as a promise he’d never kill everyone again, and then he let the Others come and do it. All the people who died must have prayed, too, and God said, No, no, no, seven billion times, seven billion nos, God said, no, no, no.
The Last Star meets its purpose, though… even if I didn’t love it 100%. There is a race against time. 4 days. Countdown. What can be done in 4 days? A lot… more death, more saving, more survival. There were, as always, some good time-stopping thought snippets in between the bodies piling high. A respite? An excuse? A promise? Hope?
Yes, in a way, looking back now on what I read, I can say that the human condition is still well and alive and kicking in this book. The messy humanity. But it felt out of place. The bloody Armageddon is happening- the time to pull philosophy filled prose is over. It is definitely not good to stop the reader in their stride in the middle of action… I don’t care about them versus us through symbolic mumblings, I want to know who pulls the trigger first. Who comes out alive on the winning side after the blast.
So, yep, the third book, the ending of the trilogy let me down a tad… Why?
Because in the end, even though who was meant to die, died, and who was meant to live, lived, the matter is far from being solved. The t didn’t get crossed and the i didn’t get dotted. All of this ‘laying everything on the line‘ and ‘keeping the promise‘… I feel like it was all for nothing! <spoiler> What I mean here is, why are there still Silencers? Why are there still enemies to fight with and survival to be done? I know, there are other bases like Camp Haven… </spoiler>
Yes, it got our characters to a certain point in time. Is this what life is? Fighting the bloody awful difficult fight only to have nothing to celebrate over? Is everything always about sacrifice? Well, what is the point at all, in this case?
The best hammer to break the bonds of distrust is natural human sympathy. Pity has killed more people than hate.
I feel like I am contradicting myself, or completely missing the point of the book. I get it- it’s the final showdown… kind of… but, it lost me in places, you know? It’s the Others, it isn’t the Others. Too many freaking variables to blow my mind. And, you know, I can also understand the ending… The world is a vast place, you can’t fix everything globally by changing something in one location. I guess, after the emotional turmoil I wanted a prize… like a dog begging for a dog biscuit after they’ve followed command.
Sigh… anyway…
Aliens are stupid. Ten thousand years to pick us apart, to know us down to the last electron, and they still don’t get it. They still don’t understand. Dumbasses.
My personal experience can be whatever in the grand scheme of things… the action was mighty and the ‘answer‘ was, in my head, logical. The why of it all… one could argue about. A timeless argument… everlasting…
Overall- it’s one hell of a trilogy! The idea is good, the characters are very, very good and the action is good. I love that this whole series is built on the clash in between human and alien, and that it explores the what ifs and the whys and the how do we go from heres… There’s plenty of meat on the bones of this plot and each and every book in the series has stood strong in its own right. I ended up a bit dissatisfied because I still have questions in my head… can you say I am a bit lost? I am sure this review demonstrated quite well how I don’t even know myself…
The 5th Wave series on Goodreads ¦ Amazon UK ¦ USA
Way to go on finishing the series. Man it’s so hard getting to that point with any of them!
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Too true with the series… and thanks 🙂 A small accomplishment 🙂
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Wahey!! Well done on finishing the series- I love that feeling! I do totally get what you mean about there sometimes being a bit too much action, which makes me skip too, because I feel like it’s a bit been-there-done-that and let’s-get-to-the-good-stuff 😉 haha and I love what you said about it feeling like you were a dog begging for a biscuit (LOL!!!) I have felt like that with books too- it’s like all you want is the emotional impact. It does sound like the series explores some complex and interesting questions, but I also totally get why the finale was a tad frustrating. Awesome review!!
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🙂 Thank you!
Book 2 was just so great with the emotional turmoil that book 3 was too much of a contrast, even though it made sense and was the natural course of action… ah well, sometimes life just sucks, you know! 😀 can’t have it all, or the way we want it to be!
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You’re welcome 🙂
That makes a lot of sense. And I’ve seen that a lot in series where it changes a lot between books. I totally get that hehe 😉 haha yes!
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I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy as much. It is a bit of a let down but I’ve read somewhere that it’s not going to stay a trilogy. There me another installment 😉
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Win some, lose some 🙂 And I can totally see how there could be more books in the series, with that ending… !
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You just confirmed that I shouldnt rush in finishing this series LOL Great review 😀 and that imagery of dog begging for a biscuit HAHA
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😀 happy to entertain… but yeah, in hindsight… I guess I would have been happy just stopping at book 2. Book 2 was great! just super… and there’s talk that there’ll be more in the series now? I can see how… but anyway… if you do decide to read it some day, i hopr you enjoy 🙂
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Great review as ever EbenLizzy and very true, it’s always a fantastic moment when you finally get to finish either a trilogy or series. It can be sad too as you’ll never experience any more books in the series but at the same time it’s an achievement and it’s always good when you get to the end and overall it’s been worthwhile reading the trilogy/series.😀
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🙂 I cannot wait for the day when I can say I’ve finished A.J. Smiths’ series 😀 oh my… I’ll be old and grey I think 😀
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I have to admit that completing a series is foreign and unknown to me right now hahahah Congratz on completing one though!!! However, it does sound like it didn’t end on the right note for you and that make this series could’ve been better off with 4 books or something. Do you plan on trying out other books by this author? I recently added the Monstrumologist by him and that one sounds phenomenal!! 😮 Great honest review as always Liz!
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I never read past the first book of this one, but I might one day. Great review!
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Thank you! 🙂
I liked book 2 more than the first book myself… 🙂
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I don;t know whether to read the review. I haven’t started these. Is it safe.. or is this one of those series were people die and the future blurbs, etc reveal too much? I am always so scared haha. I had a blurb spoil a sequel for me once and now I just can’t..
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I think you’re defo best avoiding the blurbs… considering some people do die, etc but I think generally in this case not a lot is given away in the blurbs.. ym reviews however? Yeah, avoid those until you’ve read them.. i haven’t mentioned specific events but smartypantses like yourself might remember a thing or two of the storyline and end up being spoiled 🙂
I liked book 2 the most in the trilogy! I liked the last book the least 🙂 that’s all I’ll say but… all of them worth reading, I think 🙂
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Haha you called me a “smartypants” 😉 Ok. Will have to wait until I read them and then come back and trade thoughts!
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because you are 🙂 … hang on… smartypants isn’t an offensive term isn’t it? I hope not 😀 then again, it wouldn’t be the first time I stepped into the bucket with my English 😀
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No haha.. no bucket stepping this time 😉
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Phewh!
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Oh yes, you have me needing to read these books, for sure. Thanks again for reviewing these because I had no interest before. ☺
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That’s great! 🙂 I hope you get the same level (and more) enjoyment out of the books as I did… 🙂 you will probably read them and open up a can of worms or areas about the book I never even thought to consider and that alone, has me kind of excited 😀
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