I was really anxious to start The 5th Wave because I feel like people either love it or hate it. I didn't want to hate it because it sounded like something I would really enjoy - a alien invasion survival story. Fortunately I did not. Plot-wise I got exactly what I expected. We start off with our main character, Cassie Sullivan, living in the woods on her own while trying to survive as good as possible in a world destroyed by an alien invasion. She basically lost her entire family and her only living relative is her little brother Sam, who was taken away from her. What I really liked about Cassie is her strong will and determination. She promised her brother to find him and she would do everything to keep that promise. The love for her brother is what made her move on and prevented her from losing hope and this is something I really admired about her. Cassie isn't your knife wielding and physically strong heroine but instead she just tries her best to survive in this strange new world which made her seem very "real" to me. What I wasn't expecting is that this book is told from multiple points of view. The other major viewpoint in this book was the one of Ben Parish. Ben is in a similar position as Cassie. He had to see his entire family die, too, and when he is brought to a boot camp where kids are trained to fight against the aliens, he tries to leave his old self behind and fight back. I actually connected a lot more with Ben than I did with Cassie. We get to see a lot more character interaction with him and other characters than we do with Cassie. I liked Ben because he seemed like he would be an amazing friend to have. He was kind and always tried to stand up for his friends and comrads and was really determined to help his race to defend themselves so he could make up for the mistakes he made in the past. The more or less important side characters like Ethan, who plays a big part in Cassie's storyline, and Ben's companions in the camp added a lot to the overall story. There is romance too and as always I wasn't the biggest fan of it. I still enjoyed the character interactions a lot and just hope that we won't see the implied love triangle in the next book. The overall story of the alien invasion and the different waves that they brought over the earth was more than entertaining. This book might belong into the sci-fi genre but a lot of the parts were so logical and felt like this could actually happen to us. Most of the backstory was told through flashbacks. Those were implemented perfectly and never felt out of place. Instead of just giving out facts the parts of the invasion were explained through the events that happened to the main characters and how they effected them and made them who they are now. The author is able to really make you feel all the feels and creates such a dense atmosphere that it feels like you actually experienced all of this yourself and just makes you sympathize and care about the characters. The plot twists along the way were interesting but I kind of saw them coming. Still, I am really excited to see how they will influence the plot of the next books in the series. I highly recommend The 5th Wave to everyone that enjoys a great survival story and has a soft spot for aliens and the sci-fi genre in general. This book was a real page turner for me and I stayed up til three A.M. to finish it. If you haven't picked it up yet I advise you to do it soon since the next book in the series, The Infinite Sea, comes out on September 16th 2014 and I think you don't want to miss it.