The Last Star (The third book of The 5th Wave) – Rick Yancey

Okay so….it seems as though my cohort and I have both taken a hiatus from this blog. I feel like this unexplained vacation is unacceptable. HOW DARE WE LEAVE YOU, OUR READERS, WHEN WE HAD JUST STARTED?! (Please come back!!! We’re nothing without you!)

Well, this is how.

Amanda has an actual job, along with a child, husband, and numerous furbabies, and I’m an actual, diagnosed basketcase (also with a child, husband and furbaby). And while I’m sure other bloggers have no problem getting past these things, we are not your average bloggers. We are difficult and awesome and unpredictable and ABSOLUTELY LOVABLE WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT!

(was that convincing? I don’t even know anymore. But I’m sure you guys love us EVEN MORE now…because you must…because we’re incredible.)

Anyway…so I did finally finish The 5th Wave trilogy (I had a bit of time once my kiddo started pre-school) and I really enjoyed it. It maybe didn’t go how I HOPED it would, but it was nice to see things wrapped up. But really, when’s the last time a book went the way we actually expected it to? I FOR SURE did not expect this ending.

Okay, so…While it seemed like the entirety of this series was intended to make us see how incredibly important our humanity  is, this, the final installment, almost seemed to extinguish that. The aliens wanted to save the planet…they wanted to save us at the core of who humans are…but to do that they wanted to eliminate our humanity. I’m not exactly sure how that is supposed to save humans. OR maybe I misunderstood this entire series and the idea is to save the ENVIRONMENT and not humanity? That DOES seem to be the most prevalent of all subjects at this point in history. NOT THE POINT!

IN MY OPINION (which is what this whole blog is about…right?) is that the idea of wiping out what makes humans HUMAN in order to save Planet Earth, is a lost cause…because without humanity, what even is Earth? I suppose most alien invasions have the express purpose of taking over the planet because their own planet has become a wasteland over the years…but is that what’s going on here? Are we to believe that Vosch’s idea of what the ACTUAL “Others” are (just a consciousness with no physical form?) OR is that just something that was concocted to make the adapted humans believe they were aliens? I don’t know. I’m not Yancey…but I have a feeling the aliens that sparked this whole genocide are, at least in some ways, the way Vosch had described. OF COURSE, that is depending on whether you believe there were aliens, in the first place, at all.

I, honestly, still have yet to decide whether I believe there were aliens at all. I know, at some point, Yancey had explained the aliens in some way, but without being able to ask the author in person, we have no idea whether the aliens were real, or if they were just a figment of Vosch’s imagination!

ANYWAY…here we are. We have experienced sacrifice, loss, magnification of humanity, among other emotions on the imaginable human spectrum. I think all readers will define the end of this trilogy in MANY different ways, based on our own opinions and scope of emotions. I have a tendency to feel too much about the loss of humanity as opposed to the salvation of humanity, so you’ll excuse me if I’m super opposed to all that happened in this book. (Imagine me screaming “IT’S NOT FAIR!!!!” because that’s what I did.)

In short, this book kept me on the edge of my seat (literally…the edges of the cushions of my loveseat are all but flat because of the way I was perched while reading this blasted book) and also had me questioning the nature of humankind. Rick Yancey is a talented writer (who doesn’t need a random small town book reviewer [who hasn’t even been acknowledged as such] to tell him he’s a talented writer because DUH he’s already been published. He knows already, damn it…). I desperately wish I had the abilities of Sir Yancey. So if any of you know Mr. Yancey, or can somehow reach out to him in a way that will ACTUALLY provide a response, I would LOVE YOU FOREVER FOR PUTTING ME IN TOUCH WITH HIM (because I’ve already tried tweeting at him, his wife, AND his son, to no avail…COME ON YANCEYS!!! GIVE ME A BREAK!)

So that’s that.

Rating
4/5

Book 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.

(From Goodreads)

(also, this is a terrible description…right? But I’m too lazy to write my own…Sorry Goodreads! You guys are generally very awesome!)

P.S. Seriously, I’ve desperately missed writing, and I SUCK at reading right now because I get too much in my head and I don’t do the things I REALLY want to do…so I hope either I get better at doing what I LOVE DOING or AMANDA GETS HER SHIT TOGETHER….which of course is not true life, because she’s doing what she’s supposed to do, which is TEACHING and PARENTING and WIFING…all I have to do is parent and wife…I don’t have a job…which takes up the majority of the day. So…What I’m trying to say is, I’ll do better. I’ll carry the weight if I have to. I love you all (mostly) and I will do my damnedest to make this job legit. Too legit to quit, y’all.

-Lesley

The Deleted E-Mails of Hillary Clinton: A Parody

Did you know that Hillary Clinton wrote Fifty Shades of Grey under the pseudonym E.L. James?  Or did you know that she came up with idea of opening the borders to Cuba while playing Call of Duty: Black Ops?  How about her secret career of writing for television shows such as Breaking Bad and Scandal?  In this book, John Moe has made Hillary into an almost lovable human.  From secret missions to stop Beyonce from taking over the world to finding the perfect pantsuit, Hillary is an unstoppable machine. 

This book is a short read and is absolutely hilarious.  It gives you a much needed laugh about the harshness of American politics today.  Written in email format it includes important correspondences to and from Hillary’s secret email account from family, friends, and world leaders such as Putin.  I could not put it down when I started.  Seriously.  It’s that funny.

For more information about this book or to purchase it, click here!

For more information about John Moe, click here!!

Rating: 4/5

-Amanda

**I recieved this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

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The Nest – Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney

I was somewhat disappointed in The Nest but I’m not completely sure why.  The story is told in multiple points of view, each of the siblings and some other characters.  I didn’t exactly get lost in the book.  It was just average to me.

This is a story about a dysfunctional family, greed, drugs, relationships, and lies.  It takes place in New York where the Plumb siblings have a large trust fund left to them by their late father.  They cannot have access to the trust fund, which they call The Nest, until the youngest sibling, Melody turns 40.  With Melody’s 40th birthday looming, one of the siblings, Leo, makes a horrible mistake and their mother has to tap into The Nest to get him out of trouble.  The other siblings are furious over this decision.  When Leo finds out that Francie had tapped into The Nest in order to get him out of trouble, he promises to pay his siblings back.  His siblings do not trust Leo to pay them due to his previous actions.  Basically, this book is about every dysfuctional family that has been ruined by an inheritance.  Like I said before, I did not get lost in it, it wasn’t an amazing book, but it was a good book.  The characters were somewhat relatable, I suppose.

Characters:

Melody:  A classic housewife trying to be more upscale that her family can afford.  She is married to Walter and has twin daughters named Nora and Louise.  She is counting on The Nest to pay for her daughters’ college tuitions.

Jack: An antique dealer who has taken on more than he can handle.  He is married to Walker, but his siblings do not know they are married.  He has had numerous financial problems dealing with his barely afloat antique store.  He secretly took out a loan and borrowed against his and Walker’s beach property.  He is counting on The Nest to pay off the loan and keep their beach house and his business.

Bea: An almost famous writer.  She had a couple of short stories published, thanks to her brother, Leo.  Since then she has not been able to write her much anticipated novel and is working for a literary magazine.  She is the only sibling who still has hope in Leo.

Leo: He is the whole reason for the mess with The Nest.  One dumb mistake and he potentially ruined the lives of his three siblings.  He is the party boy.  The one who never takes responsibility for his actions.  After his mistake, he lost his wife (who he didn’t really like) and his home.  Luckily for him, the settlement included a confidentiality clause, so his mistake was kept secret.

You would think those four characters could tell the story quite easily.  However, there are some add on characters that had me thinking “okay, who is this guy again?”

Norma and Louise: Melody’s twin daughters.  Their mother expects them to be perfect.  She spends weekends taking the girls on college tours and spends money they don’t have on SAT prep classes that the girls have started ditching instead.  It is at these classes that the girls meet Simone.  Simone opens up a whole new world to the girls.

Paul Underwood:  Runs the literary magazine that Bea works for.  He is secretly in love with Bea and has been for a while.  I don’t really see him as a big player in this book until the very last chapter.

Tommy: I’m still not quite sure why his point of view was included.  He was a security guard who lost his wife when the towers fell on 9/11.  He ended up stealing a statue from Ground Zero that he thinks was a sign from his dead wife.  Other than being a part of Jack’s desception to Walker, he plays no huge part in this story.

Stephanie: Leo’s on and off again flame.  She is who Leo turns to when he gets out of rehab and is alone in the world.  She has always loved Leo but has always had a problem with his personality.  She may have the key to bring the Plumb family back together.

Matilda:  She was involved in Leo’s big mistake and was the recipient of a large settlement from The Nest.

Vinny:  I’m also not quite sure why Vinny’s point of view was included in this story.  He is a military vetern, who lost an arm in combat.  He helps Matilda thoughout her journey and ends up falling for her.

Rating: 3/5

-Amanda