I have conflicting emotions about this book to be honest. I saw the movie when it first came out and really didn't like it because of the acting and writing, but thought the concept was really interesting and therefor came to the conclusion that the book would probably be a lot better. It was at first. For a while I was really enjoying the book. But after a while it started going downhill for me. The characters who I thought had potential in the beginning fell short, the writing seemed lazy and annoyingly repetitive, the plot was at the same time too slow and too fast and also didn't have enough substance. I didn't have a favourite character, none of them stood out enough for me to really care about any of them, but my least favourite was definitely Cassie. I found her to be bratty and annoying and her temper tantrums drove me nuts.

Spoiler

Her relationship with Evan was way too cliche in the beginning, it made me physically cringe. I did end up liking them as a couple by the end of it though.

If I had to choose a favourite it would probably be Evan. He's the only who's back story was actually kind of interesting.

Spoiler

One thing in the movie that I really liked was the big reveal of who the bad guys really were, which we didn't find out until the end. I though that was a great plot twist. In the book, however, we find out that Vosch and the army dudes are the Others very early on and it kind of ruined the rest of the book for me. We knew what the characters didn't, and in some cases that can work really well but with The 5th Wave I don't think that was a good idea. It made the rest of the book boring because I was just waiting for everyone to finally figure it out, and because of that this book lacked the excitement I was hoping for.

On the other hand, there were some things that I enjoyed, mostly the ending. The last quarter of the book I thought was really exciting and action packed, which almost (but not quite) made up for the snooze-fest that was the rest of the book.
Overall, I can't say that this is a book I would recommend to others. I didn't hate The 5th Wave, but I doubt I'll be reading the other books in the series.

2016 Reading Challenge: A book that's becoming a movie this year