YA Book Review: The Infinite Sea by Rick Yancey

51) The Infinite Sea by Rick Yancey

Yancey's first novel, The 5th Wave, highlighted an alien invasion where the aliens never really invaded. Instead, they put their massive ships into orbit where most everyone on Earth could see them, and they let the havoc begin. It posed a great moral question for the ages: why would the aliens destroy us, when we were perfectly willing to destroy ourselves, assuming the aliens were here to destroy us?  The first four waves of the invasion went much like that, with one major exception: the aliens planted themselves within human embryos as sleeper agents. Nearly seven billion humans died. Now The Others (the aliens) are looking to finish the job of ridding the Earth of all humanity.

In book two, The Infinite Sea, Cassie, Ben and Ringer continue fighting against all odds to save themselves and what is left of humanity. One unresolved question from The 5th Wave was: why are The Others taking small children? We get an answer at the start of book two: they are creating preschooler bombs. Who can resist offering a small child assistance, even with all the threats and precautions in the post-apocalyptic world? Yancey takes the epic struggle for the Earth down to our rag-tag band of young rebels, and alternates narrators throughout so we get a multitude of perspectives. Two of the most important views we get are of Evan struggling with Grace, a seeming super-alien, and Ringer's mental chess match with commander Vosch. Through these interactions we begin seeing The Other's side of the story, and most amazingly, Yancey somehow makes The Others sympathetic characters. By the end of book two everything you thought you knew, and everything you had expected to feel, has been turned upside down. 

All will be revealed in the third book, or so we hope, given that we'll have to wait another year for the next installment. Highly recommended for high school. Violence and sex might make this title less appealing for middle school libraries, but the interest will certainly be there.