The Last Star by Rick Yancey

Series: The 5th Wave (bk. 3)

Genera(s): Dystopian Sci-fi

Subjects: post-apocalyptic, aliens, survival,

Setting: Ohio, during late winter, early spring. Ohio Caverns. A little bit of Canada too.

POV/Tense: 1st person POV present and past tense, rotating by part between Ringer (Marika), Zombie (Ben) & Cassie (Cassiopeia), and 3rd person of Evan and Sam

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 338 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $18.99

Publisher: Penguin: Putnam

Summary/ product description: “The enemy is Other. The enemy is us.

They’re down here, they’re up there, they’re nowhere. They want the Earth, they want us to have it. They came to wipe us out, they came to save us.

But beneath these riddles lies one truth: Cassie has been betrayed. So has Ringer. Zombie. Nugget. And all 7.5 billion people who used to live on our planet. Betrayed first by the Others, and now by ourselves.

In these last days, Earth’s remaining survivors will need to decide what’s more important: saving themselves…or saving what makes us human.”

My Review:  The Last Star is the highly anticipated finale of the 5^th Wave trilogy. It starts off with a prologue about why Cassie’s father named her Cassiopeia. Then there’s the 3^rd person perspective of a priest who’s a silencer, and goes to Ohio Caverns and kills the people living there. Then at page 21 we finally get to the story.  

Cassie’s pretty angry. Her, Zombie aka Ben, Evan Walker, Dumbo, Sam and Megan are all hiding out. Ringer and Teacup went ahead to some Caverns. Cassie’s mad because of a lot of things, but one thing is that her six-year-old brother Sam forgot his ABCs. Zombie and Dumbo go after Ringer. They run into trouble and stuff happens. There’s only 4 days till the spring equinox when the bombs will drop from the mothership to destroy all cities on earth.

This series seems to use well-known places as settings. At least well known if you ever been to Ohio. In 2004, when I was 11, on my family trip to Ohio, we visited Ohio Caverns. It was a cool cave. I’ve been to 5 other caves, and this one seemed pretty small. Maybe it was just the tour we went on. Anyway, I took pictures. It was beautiful. On that trip we also the air force base’s museum, the space museum in Dayton and also we stayed in Columbus.

Here's Ohio Caverns:

(the girl in the blue jacket is me)

Here's the air force museum:

This series has been pretty good, but some things have really irritated me about it. Maybe the way perspective change and the way chapter begin and end on the same page with very little space much like in the Unwind series. I this final book there are labels when the perspective change. Cassie, Zombie, Ringer, Sam, and Evan Walker. And the perspective changes every few chapter. No having to really a whole part, 100 pages straight, of just one character.

My favorite character’s POV to read is Cassie. She’s funny. Her humor reminds me so much of Maximum Ride. I still wish the whole book was in Cassie’s perspective, but I can see now how that wouldn’t have worked. Maybe if it was limited to Cassie and Zombie. What I don’t understand now if how Cassie’s POV could have been written in a journal the whole time because of the ending.

Let’s talk about that ending. *VAGUE SPOILER AHEAD*

If you read the ending to Allegiant by Veronica Roth, it’s that kind of ending. I hate martyr endings. Also, I feel like too much was left open, like there’s a possibility of a spin-off series. Probably won’t happen, just saying.

Also, in September 2014 I got to meet Rick Yancey. You can click here to see.

Cover Art Review: Not sure if that’s an air force base or water treatment plant on the cover. The cover is pretty good. You can see the owl behind the title this time. It’s a lot more noticeable than the previous covers.