Rate: 3/5

Medium: Book

Overview (No Spoilers): I was a bit surprised to find that I moderately enjoyed The Last Star, however I’m undecided if this phenomenon could be attributed to the harboring of extremely low expectations to begin with. I flew through this last novel of The 5^th Wave series within two sittings, racing toward a finish that left several details muddled and rushed as time was set to expire for humanity. While the same penchant maintained, as with the previous two novels, for rushing into half contrived, almost certainly suicidal rescue missions, the reader has been conditioned at this point in the series to expect such foolhardy plans. The Last Star also continues the rather grating personalities of Sam being rather bratty, Ringer’s impenetrable walls, Evan’s nine lives, and Cassie maintaining her sassy front. However, beyond the normal fray, important issues are raised regarding Sam’s generation forgetting the alphabet or written language. The importance of books and city centers with regard to holding cultural significance, history, and civilization. Overall, The Last Star was by far the most satisfying of the trilogy, however the series as a whole is subpar. There are so many other great trilogies out there that have better developed characters and plot lines that I would recommend bypassing this series.

Additional Insight (May Contain Spoilers):

1. I have an understand Cassie’s reaction to Evan in this book compared to previous books. She seemed to personally hold him accountable for what happened to humanity. There’s even a bizarre angry sex scene that is just sad. Poor Evan. Upon Evan, yet again, sacrificing himself for Cassie, she abandons everything, even her baby brother Sam, to go on a suicide mission to rescue him. At the end of the book, yes he still survives, he leaves for another suicide mission to attack more military encampments. Why would he leave the only family Cassie had left?
2. I loved that Cassie downloaded all of the memories into herself! This was the only version of this crucial main character, I connected with or found even remotely fascinating. However, this twist was brief in nature with Cassie suffering the same fate as the female lead in the Divergent series, despite Yancey pulling off this feat in a much more satisfying manor than Roth.
3. I have a hard time willing myself to discuss any of the other characters at length. Zombie and Nugget were more of the same with very little additional character development. Ringer became a hardened killing machine struggling to maintain her humanity. Her ‘surprise’ pregnancy was hardly a surprise. I called it back in the second book. The character I’m absolutely baffled with and can hardly still wrap my mind around was the evil Colonel Vosch. So he was in on the bigger picture from the beginning, however he was really going to be made into pure consciousness by the Others? Why would they want someone so evil as one of them? Was he in love with Ringer as a father or something more? Where did this affection suddenly come from? Alas, I’m confused. As Zombie alluded, what if he knew that Razor and Ringer were going to have relations and somehow implanted his own gametes in Razor and the baby was his? I realize I’m being highly speculative, however I thought it was a weird connection for Zombie to vocalize in the context of the book.
   

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