Symbolism In The 5th Wave

The book, The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey, begins with Cassie's Sullivan describing flashbacks in her life. She starts with small memories like her father gifting her a telescope and then shifts to thinking of how she wishes she was still the person she was before, the one that hadn't killed people, quite a dramatic change. So far in the book, I have read about the first three waves. The first wave destroys all the electronics on earth, the second destroys most of the world itself and the third one is a virus that kills of about seven billion people. These waves are caused by aliens. Even though I am not that far in the book, I have noted a lot of change in Cassie as a person. When Cassie's comes across a wounded soldier, she is very hesitant to help him due to the fact that she believes that he may be a alien in disguise. She tells the soldier to lift his hands up, and when he does, she shoots him. The …show more content…
I didn't take this part in the book as some sort of religious symbolism, but rather as symbolism of Cassie's loss of faith in trust and humans. So far, I am enjoying this book because unlike a lot of other science fiction novels, this book is simple to comprehend; there is no new crazy system or parallel universe that the author has made up, it is simply just about aliens attacking earth; I like this because there's no insane terms and ideas I have to worry about understanding just to keep up with the book. I usually am not a fan of science fiction and was hesitant to pick it up, but I am glad that I did. I also like how the author has given a sense of urgency throughout the book so far, I think she does this by creating dialogue between characters. Also, Yancey has managed to even mention some parts of Cassie's life that are normal to a teenage girl, such as her crush on Ben Parrish. Before all the madness with