The 5th Wavechronicles the adventures oftwo teenagers, Cassie and Ben, along with Cassie’s younger brother, Sammy. Cassie is a humorous to many people, yet protective when it comes to caring for Sammy, person, quite similar to Ben and his sister. Sammy is just an innocent five-year old. The point of view is first person, but is rotated among these characters each segment of the book. It also takes place in the present in America. Havoc arises as one by one, each “wave” from the aliens comes to harm the humans. No humans know the true motive of the aliens. In the first wave, there is a massive electromagnetic pulse that destroys everything that runs on electricity and wipes out all vehicles.
The second wave causes several tsunamis that wipe out the people within sixty miles of the coast line, forty percent of the world’s population. When the third wave hits, the majority of the people, including Cassie’s mother, are killed by a disease. At the forth wave, nobody can be trusted because the aliens can be in human form. Somewhere through this time, Ben’s family had been killed by thieves robbing his house.
Ben runs away to a protective camp; however, he gets sick there. After awhile, a battalion of soldiers come into the camp and take Ben away to Camp Haven. They claim that the camp Ben was staying atwas run by the aliens!He was fortunately cured of his sickness and enrolled into an army of several young children being trained to fight in the war.
Meanwhile, Cassie, Sam, and their dad set out to a military base to be safe. After a while at this camp, they take the younger children in school buses to be relocated to a safe place, so Sammy is sent off to the same camp as Ben. At the camp Cassie and her father are staying at, havoc breaks out, as one of the soldiers kill another boy. Cassie shoots this man as well as a few others, but Vosch, the leader of the camp, murders Cassie’s father, blows up the entire camp, and then flees along with his fellow soldiers. Cassie luckily escapes, but endures hard days by herself. Eventually, it becomes winter, and Cassie is about to freeze to death, when this mysterious boy rescues and takes care of her. This boy, Evan, has some suspicious qualities that make Cassie wonder if he should be trusted.
However, Cassie’s main goal is to rescue her younger brother, and it would be best if she had some help, so she decided to tag along with Evan for some time. This relationship has some quarrels at times, but the two start to fall in love with each other. This love falls apart, when Evan admits that he is an alien. Cassie runs into Evan again and they get to talk and it is found out that Evan is truly in love with Cassie and is not siding with the aliens. Cassie trains with Evan, learns all the information about the aliens, and goes off alone with Evan’s advice to save Sammy.
While Cassie is with Evan this whole time, Ben and Sammy are doing intense army training, and these two become very close to each other. Ben is sent off with his squad, but Sammy is left behind due to a lack of training. In Ben’s first mission, his squad discovers a fallacy pertaining to Camp Haven. All the leaders of Camp Haven are actually aliens. The act of training the children for the war had been a whole scam. They were tricked into killing their own kind! They have now discovered the 5o Wave. Ben makes a heroic decision, he goes back to Camp Haven in order to rescue Sammy, just like Cassie.
In their mad schemes to save Sammy, the two meet and understand each other and attempt to escape. Vosch finds out what they are doing and captures and interrogates them. However, they are luckily saved by Evan, who hacks into the system, and is at the camp in to help them out. Evan becomes a martyr trying to save Cassie, Ben, and Sammy when he blows up the entire base, along with himself. Finally, the three main characters are rescued by Ben’s army squad. The fate of these characters are answered in an upcoming sequel.
