The Infinite Sea by Rick Yancy

The Infinite Sea is the sequel to The Fifth Wave. The Fifth Wave was a decent book. I liked the way in which the aliens decided to take over earth. It was interesting and mostly an enjoyable read, which really made the sequel a disappointment for the most part.

I came SO close to DNFing this book. The only reason I didn't is because I bought the bloody thing and I hate wasting money (although the fact that I didn't enjoy the book meant it was a waste of money anyway). The book was saved by the part called "The Sum of all Things", basically the last 100 pages. I thought the coded talk was clever and I liked that it wasn't spelt out, for a change giving the reader the benefit of the doubt - we have some level of intelligence. I enjoyed the plot twist and am curious now to see where the story goes. Damn! I was hoping to abandon this series - although I still might. One can google plots - just ask the kids at school when they are supposed to do a book report.

Now let me discuss the issues I had with it.

1) Logic, science and/or just plain common sense and the chronic lack there of
Ooo... the aliens have found a new way to not just kill humans, but to completely destroy their souls too. They have put exploding devices in the throats of very young children which are detonated by Carbon dioxide - the CO2 from the concerned person who goes to check the kid's throat. Right. Now let me point out the HUGE, unforgivable problem with this. When said kid says, "My throat is sore." they should blow up. In fact, said kid breathing should result in said kid being blown up. Yes, yes. It is claimed these devices are calibrated (What? We each have our own signature of CO2? Wow? Imagine if CSI got onto that one!), adjusted to pick up variations in CO2 (Hmmm, that does not vary when you are a human on your own, right.) but then later they claim that CO2 (rightly) comes from everywhere. So these kids should have blown themselves up just by breathing. This did not make any sense whatsoever. If he wanted to use the kids as traps, why not have it that these devices would blow when subjected to light, because, let's face it, one needs light to look down someone's throat.

2)Plot
What plot. Very little happened. Even my favourite part felt like a rehash from book 1 - although I might be a bit mistaken because I read book 1 far too long ago (May, 2014). The rest of it? It didn't warrant a book - maybe a chapter or 2.

3) The writing
What the hell is "whisper-shouted"? Either you whisper or you shout. You can't do both.

4) Ill-timed romance
Hey! We are sitting on a bed with a bomb on the table next to us, which could go off at any second, and I am going to think about his chocolatey eyes and the fact that he is almost butt naked under the covers. It is scenes like these that has put me completely off of romance in stories. Oh, and don't get me started on the "I love you"/"I hate you" mood swings. That is one thing even my favourite writers can do to piss me off completely. Women, contrary to urban legend, do not have such radical mood swings in a space of a minute.

Over all, I gave this 2 stars on Goodreads. The best thing about this reading experience is that I have now cleared the 3rd book off my TBR pile.