The Last Star (Fifth Wave Series #3)

by Rick Yancey

Overview

The highly-anticipated finale to the New York Times bestselling 5th Wave series.

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.

Praise for The Last Star
“Yancey’s prose remains achingly precise, and this grows heavier, tighter, and more impossible to put down as the clock runs out…this blistering finale proves the truth of the first two volumes: it was never about the aliens.”—Booklist, starred review
 
“A haunting, unforgettable finale.”—Kirkus Reviews
 
“Yancey doesn’t hit the breaks for one moment, and the action is intense, but the language always stays lyrical and lovely. It’s a satisfying end to an impressive trilogy, true to the characters and the world Yancey created.”—Entertainment Weekly
 
“Yancey has capped off his riveting series with a perfect ending.”—TeenReads.com
 
“[T]he ending provides both satisfaction and heartbreak.”—Publishers Weekly
 
“Yancey's writing is just as solid and descriptive as in the first two books….What Yancey does beautifully is reveal the human condition.”—Examiner.com

"Rick Yancey sticks the (alien) landing in the action-packed finale to his The 5th Wave invasion saga . . . . And the author gives us a major dose of girl power as well, pairing Cassie and Ringer for an uneasy alliance that provides the best moments in this fantastic series’ thought-provoking and satisfying conclusion.”—USA Today


Praise for The 5th Wave
Now a major motion picture starring Chloë Grace Moretz

"Remarkable, not-to-be-missed-under-any-circumstances."—Entertainment Weekly

"A modern sci-fi masterpiece . . ."—USAToday.com
 
"Wildly entertaining . . . I couldn't turn the pages fast enough."—Justin Cronin, The New York Times Book Review

Praise for The Infinite Sea 

“Heart-pounding pacing, lyrical prose and mind-bending twists . . .”—The New York Times Book Review

“Impressively improves on the excellent beginning of the trilogy.”—USA Today

“An epic sci-fi novel with all the romance, action, and suspense you could ever want.”—Seventeen.com
 
Books in the series:
The 5th Wave (The First Book of The 5th Wave)
The Infinite Sea (The Second Book of The 5th Wave)
The Last Star (The Third Book of the The 5th Wave)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780594692126
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	05/24/2016
Series:	Fifth Wave Series , #3
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.40(d)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Rick Yancey (rickyancey.com) is the author of the New York Times bestseller The 5th Wave, The Infinite Sea, several adult novels, and the memoir Confessions of a Tax Collector. His first young-adult novel, The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp, was a finalist for the Carnegie Medal. In 2010, his novel, The Monstrumologist, received a Michael L. Printz Honor, and the sequel, The Curse of the Wendigo, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. When he isn't writing or thinking about writing or traveling the country talking about writing, Rick is hanging out with his family. Follow him on Twitter @RickYancey.

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Excerpted from "The Last Star"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Rick Yancey.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Young Readers Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Editorial Reviews

05/23/2016
Six weeks have passed since readers left Cassie, Ben, and their skeletal crew clinging to life at the end of The Infinite Sea, limping toward a final confrontation with the Others, inscrutable aliens who have engineered the near-extinction of the human race. Seven billion are dead. Those still alive cannot let down their guard. Silencers roam the countryside picking off survivors. This final installment of Yancey's 5th Wave trilogy again unspools from multiple perspectives, keeping readers as off-balance as the characters, who must adjust to a world where they can trust no one. Current events make it harder to read this dystopian epic as escapist literature when some plot elements—like the Others' use of suicide bombers not old enough to know what they're doing—are far from implausible. After hundreds of pages of violent, nonstop action, the ending provides both satisfaction and heartbreak. Ben perhaps gets to the heart of Yancey's theme when he says the only way to win against an irrational foe is to hold onto his humanity. "You're never perfectly safe," he says. "To live is to risk your life, your heart, everything." Ages 14–up. Agent: Brian DeFiore, DeFiore and Co. (May)

Publishers Weekly

★ Loss and sacrifice intertwine with the underlying questions of morality, family, and human strength, and the resolutions of two apocalyptically doomed romances are appropriately understated, but no less electrifying. . . . [T]his blistering finale proves the truth of the first two volumes: it was never about the aliens."—Booklist, starred review


"[The Last Star] again unspools from multiple perspectives, keeping readers as off-balance as the characters, who must adjust to a world where they can trust no one. . . . After hundreds of pages of violent, nonstop action, the ending provides both satisfaction and heartbreak."
—Publishers Weekly


Praise for The 5th Wave
An Amazon Best Book of the Year
A New York Times bestseller
A USA Today bestseller
 
“Just read it.”—Entertainment Weekly
 
“A modern sci-fi masterpiece.”—USA Today
 
“Wildly entertaining . . . I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough.”—Justin Cronin,The New York Times Book Review
 
 “Nothing short of amazing.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
 
“Gripping!”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
 
“Everyone I trust is telling me to read this book.”—The Atlantic Wire 
 
Praise for The Infinite Sea 
A New York Times bestseller
A USA Today bestseller
 
“Heart-pounding pacing, lyrical prose and mind-bending twists . . .”—The New York Times Book Review

“Impressively improves on the excellent beginning of the trilogy.”—USA Today

“An epic sci-fi novel with all the romance, action, and suspense you could ever want.”—Seventeen.com

From the Publisher

06/01/2016
Gr 9 Up—The Others arrived with one goal in mind—complete annihilation of the human race. The first wave cut the power, the second brought natural disasters, the third heralded the plague, the fourth saw the Others walk among us, but the fifth will be the worst. Without trust, it is every human for themselves. Forced by Vosch to undergo the 12th system, Ringer is enhanced with alien technology that makes her a deadly killer. Vosch has given her one mission—bring him Evan Walker. With Evan captured, Ringer offers Cassie what she wants most—a chance to infiltrate Vosch's headquarters to save Evan as long as Vosch is Ringer's to kill. Added to this pressure is the fact that they have just four days before the mothership will begin dropping bombs on all of the world's major cities. This is the most mature of the volumes of Yancey's "Fifth Wave" trilogy, as strong language frequently appears and violence reaches its peak. Astute fans will appreciate the author's attempt to make everything come full circle back to Cassie's initial fear that she is the last human. While satisfying, the ending will leave readers either loving or hating it, so prepare to hear passionate debates from teens. VERDICT While some questions remain unanswered, there are too many fans of the series even to consider passing over the final installment for purchase.—Lindsey Tomsu, La Vista Public Library, NE

School Library Journal

2016-05-19
Cassie, Ringer, Ben (aka Zombie), and company fight the final frontier to save the last vestiges of human life on Earth. On the heels of their mind-boggling discovery of the origin of the "others"—humans who they were tricked into thinking were aliens—Yancey's cast of child soldiers and assassins plots to stop the planet's takeover, led by the evil Vosch, who's responsible for the mass murder of billions of innocent humans. The story takes place over the final four days before 5th Wave soldiers are unleashed to destroy every city in the world. Similar to the first two titles in the trilogy (The 5th Wave, 2013, and The Infinite Sea, 2014), this action-packed conclusion starts with a ghastly, ominous tableau then unfolds through the voices of its various heroines, heroes, and villains. Yancey piles on plenty of gross throughout, including a pit of freshly killed and rotting dead bodies that gets visited and revisited on multiple occasions as well as a very, very scary crazy cat lady that will have readers recoiling in horror and disgust—only Yancey could have imagined it. Religion also plays a fairly strong role this time around, as characters find themselves questioning their own personal beliefs as well as their trust and faith in each other, which is totally understandable give their state of affairs. Although the going gets murky from time to time, readers should be happy to know that by the end all is revealed, even if it's not necessarily the truth they want. A haunting, unforgettable finale. (Science fiction. 14 & up)

Kirkus Reviews

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