The Infinite Sea

By Rick Yancey

“When you look death in the eye and death blinks first, nothing seems impossible”

Goodreads description of The Infinite Sea:

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.

If you liked The 5^th Wave, be prepared to fall deeper into Yancey’s story in The Infinite Sea.

Yancey’s writing is still just as exquisite and unique. He controls the power to make you stare at the book dumbfounded for a few minutes from merely a word or make you question everything the book has previously told you. He has such a haunting narrative.

All your favourite characters are back in The Infinite Sea, if a bit battered. Ringer becomes a bigger part of the story, which pleased me immensely as she struck me as such a strong intelligent female character in the first book. I hope you like her too.

The storyline is just as explosive as the first book; it’s full of intrigue, action and suspense. It has you constantly on edge and questioning everything, eager for more.

I love how Yancey deals with secondary characters; each one has their own, just as horrific as the main characters, back-story, sometimes you just don’t know about it yet. It makes you think that these characters could just as easily be the main characters, who aren’t more special than them; they’ve all been through the same things. You begin to respect them more than you would secondary characters from other series’ and hold them just as high as your favourite main characters. You remember them.

Just when you think you find a seemingly plot-hole looking thing in the story, Yancey has an answer or at least a hint to an answer yet to come. Why did the aliens attack now? If all it takes is a big rock to destroy the human population, why are they toying with us? He is relentless in covering and answering every point.

I would highly recommend rereading the first book before diving into The Infinite Sea, or read a recap as it’s sometimes hard to remember the who’s who of secondary characters and what happened. The Infinite Sea is significantly shorter than its predecessor, by around 150 pages, a downside if you prefer long books.

Being the 2^nd book, which in a series, can sometimes take a nose dive, The Infinite Sea manages to hold itself up high with the 1^st. It might not equal the 1^st’s many shocking revelations at every turn, being more of a filler and builder book, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t just as exciting.

I would award The Infinite Sea 4.5 stars.

And now the long wait for the next book commences…