Sam's Notes Taken Along the Way
Part One:
Part One:
Okay science-people: give me the true definition of a star; because I pretty much think of Pumba's explanation from The Lion King. In the book the narrator says the stars are suns.
I find it funny that both of Tyler's book choices have been "end of the world" "clearly written for boys" however "narrated by a girl".
Has anyone else heard of the "Grandfather Paradox"? Whether you have or not, have you read "All You Zombies"? If not, you should - it's a short story. In fact, I might share it on the group page and the blog here since it's brought up here. And if you find the short story interesting, then you should certainly read Chuck Palahniuk's book "Rant".
I hate the silence. I never realize how used to the Hum I am until we loose power at the apartment and it's deafening. I remember the first time it went out without a reason (no storm) it was later at night and I opened the door to the hallway and the complete darkness and complete silence made my brain go into panic mode like I had just opened the door to let in demons or something.
I think it's interesting how the "matter of fact" style of this book makes me more interested in it. There isn't pages of description but I feel so enthralled and intrigued with the story, and it makes the book go by faster.
Wouldn't the sudden "technology" make you leery of thinking good things? Like was there not one piece of technology that the "camp" had that they could have checked on to see if it was working? Just reading through the part where they saw the helicopter and then the buses, it just makes sense that the aliens were lulling you into a false sense of security.
The part where Sammy tells Cassie to make sure she doesn't forget and leave his teddy bear behind definitely pulled at my heartstrings.
When Cassie is looking back at the moment when all the "military men" had the guns, she's calling her dad an idiot for not figuring it all out sooner. But did she know at the time? If she did, why did she rat out Crisco?
It's awful, but also really clever, to have Crisco's character be so obsessed with the treasures and then to have him die in the ash pit.
Part Two:
I'm not a fan of jumping POV without explanation. If you're going to jump narrators throughout "Parts" then you should introduce them somehow so the reader isn't confused.
Was there a "1st Wave" book? I feel this book explains what happens well enough that you wouldn't need previous books. But if there are other books, why did Tyler have us start with the 5th?
I think it's sick that they made the narrator in this part kill his friend, Chris. Even if Chris was always a puppet to The Others, they could have had someone else kill him. But I guess that's war.
Okay, so Ben Parish is the narrator for part two, now I'm a lot more intrigued. I guess that's a type of literary technique - to keep you obsessed with the unknown so by the time you figure out who you're reading about you're so hooked it doesn't hardly matter.
Also, I appreciate the parallelism that both of these kids / teens have lost younger siblings they cared about. But of course, that also makes me sappy and want them to find each other and heal each other's wounds.
I am very confused as to if the people that are about to train Ben are "good guys" or "bad guys" or just "better of two evils".
Part Three:
Part Two:
I'm not a fan of jumping POV without explanation. If you're going to jump narrators throughout "Parts" then you should introduce them somehow so the reader isn't confused.
Was there a "1st Wave" book? I feel this book explains what happens well enough that you wouldn't need previous books. But if there are other books, why did Tyler have us start with the 5th?
I think it's sick that they made the narrator in this part kill his friend, Chris. Even if Chris was always a puppet to The Others, they could have had someone else kill him. But I guess that's war.
Okay, so Ben Parish is the narrator for part two, now I'm a lot more intrigued. I guess that's a type of literary technique - to keep you obsessed with the unknown so by the time you figure out who you're reading about you're so hooked it doesn't hardly matter.
Also, I appreciate the parallelism that both of these kids / teens have lost younger siblings they cared about. But of course, that also makes me sappy and want them to find each other and heal each other's wounds.
I am very confused as to if the people that are about to train Ben are "good guys" or "bad guys" or just "better of two evils".
Part Three:
I find it funny how the first bit of this book is all about how "we got it wrong" with all of our "fluffy alien movies", and yet in this chapter you're hearing the thoughts of an "Alien" who is "not like the others" and "for some reason can't do what he was put here to do - kill this female human".
Why aren't the "Aliens" concerned about the animals? Is it because animals are actually essential to the ecosystem of the earth while humans aren't so much?
Did anyone else get some "Host" deja vu when talking about The Awakening? Or is it just me? Is this a common theme in Science Fiction stories, where 95% of the Aliens are anti-human but the other 5% are either sympathetic or the human's the inhabit are just too strong to be overpowered?
Part Four:
I'm glad Evan Walker explained the possibility of the humans working with the aliens under certain circumstances. I still find it dumb because the chances of the aliens stabbing humans in the back doesn't seem too far fetched.
I'm glad Evan Walker is hopeful, yet smart. I didn't like how cynical Cassie was, how you couldn't trust anyone - even if you can't. I'm glad Evan actually does still have his humanity intact, not just pretending to.
I really love the Evan Walker bit. I love that he brings her back to reality and that she's not the only one with loss. I love that he accepts her "purpose for life" as his own and make a plan to help her, even if it ends in their deaths. I'm glad The Others didn't get to him before Cassie met him.
Part Five:
Just curious, since this part is narrated by Sammy, did you guys ever have a specific thing as a kid that made everything better? I remember, I had Duckie - this off brand beanie baby duck that I took with me everywhere. And one time we had a really bad tornado and I was pretty sure I had left him outside and I cried and cried until my dad left the crawl space to go get him for me so I would relax.
Part Six:
"Zombie" is a super lame nick name - especially when you're referring to yourself, Ben Parish.
Correction - all of the soldier names are ridiculous: Flintstone, Tank, Dumbo, Poundcake, Oompa, Teacup, and Nugget.
Okay, now I'm upset. Why would they take kids younger than 10 to train for battle? I don't remember how young the Hunger Games went but I know there was a cut off. Although it does make sense to finally tie the multiple narrators together, now Sammy is with Ben Parish.
Since Vosch is apparently a "good guy" then I don't fully understand why they killed everyone in Camp Ashpit. They didn't test them for "green or red" to see if they had aliens in their brains, they just took the youngest kids and blew up the rest. Is it simply that they assumed the adults would rebel against "the man" while the kids would not? And, even if that is the case, Ben and Cassie were the same age and so it doesn't make sense that Ben/Zombie was taken to Camp Haven and Cassie was left behind.
I love that the "code" for a soldier going rogue is "Dorothy" or "off to see the wizard" or "on the yellow brick road".
What's up with the "vivid description of something physical on a person" followed by the phrase "not that I'm noticing these things" in both Cassie and Ben's POV.
Was Ben 15 when Cassie was 16? Is that why Cassie was sentenced to die? Or was it just a matter of them being in different places where different people called the shots?
I love and hate the parallelism of "“No matter what happens out there, I’ll come back for you,” I promise him."
Part Seven:
I can definitely relate to the feeling of being able to tell when a certain person is walking around - and hoe unsettling it is when that person walks or sounds different than normal. Used to happen all the tie at my mom's. And even now, in my apartment, I can usually tell who's here by the heaviness of their steps outside in the hall.
I'm a total dunce for not putting it together than Evan might be The Silencer.
Part Eight:
I know that a part of what makes the book good and interesting is that it twists and turns but I hate feeling like I don't understand what is going on. I agree with Ringer, that it makes more sense that the infested are actually the ones running the Boot Camp Base while the non-infested are running around being gunned down by trained alien pods. Green light and red light - which is actually the enemy? Ringer is Green after getting her Wonderland Pod removed.
That's awful that the Wonderland program goes through every single memory, not just key ones. Although I guess the memory of realizing the truth would be pretty key.
Part Nine:
Weird that Cassie told Evan that she suspected something less than good about him.
I agree with Cassie, Evan shouldn't have burned the house down, to keep hope alive.
Did Evan end up killing the squad Ben left behind? Or a squad sent to find Ben's squad?
That seems really torturous to have Sammy be in boot camp for damn near 3 years while other people are only in for 6 months.
I agree that it does seem way more realistic that aliens are really just a "concept" more than a physical being that's going to appear in front of us one day.
So Cassie must not have been infected if Evan was able to "enter" her. But then she glowed red.
Part Twelve:
I love that Evan (I'm assuming) hacked the system and made the "kill" button read "oops" instead.
I think it's great that Evan knocked the cockroach corpse through the grate and that was what Cassie noticed and proved that Evan was alive.
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by this novel. I always say I hate Science Fiction but this book club has proven that I'm just picky. The story was swift but still not predictable which is great. I don't like the jumping narrator, even if it did make sense at the end, I don't prefer it. I'm a little unsure how I feel about the end. I want to know if Evan made it, I don't really want Cassie and Ben to be too friendly, and I want to know what the next step in the story is. But, I guess that's the sign of a good book because I want to go look up the next book in the series (if there is one).
Why aren't the "Aliens" concerned about the animals? Is it because animals are actually essential to the ecosystem of the earth while humans aren't so much?
Did anyone else get some "Host" deja vu when talking about The Awakening? Or is it just me? Is this a common theme in Science Fiction stories, where 95% of the Aliens are anti-human but the other 5% are either sympathetic or the human's the inhabit are just too strong to be overpowered?
Part Four:
I'm glad Evan Walker explained the possibility of the humans working with the aliens under certain circumstances. I still find it dumb because the chances of the aliens stabbing humans in the back doesn't seem too far fetched.
I'm glad Evan Walker is hopeful, yet smart. I didn't like how cynical Cassie was, how you couldn't trust anyone - even if you can't. I'm glad Evan actually does still have his humanity intact, not just pretending to.
I really love the Evan Walker bit. I love that he brings her back to reality and that she's not the only one with loss. I love that he accepts her "purpose for life" as his own and make a plan to help her, even if it ends in their deaths. I'm glad The Others didn't get to him before Cassie met him.
Part Five:
Just curious, since this part is narrated by Sammy, did you guys ever have a specific thing as a kid that made everything better? I remember, I had Duckie - this off brand beanie baby duck that I took with me everywhere. And one time we had a really bad tornado and I was pretty sure I had left him outside and I cried and cried until my dad left the crawl space to go get him for me so I would relax.
Part Six:
"Zombie" is a super lame nick name - especially when you're referring to yourself, Ben Parish.
Correction - all of the soldier names are ridiculous: Flintstone, Tank, Dumbo, Poundcake, Oompa, Teacup, and Nugget.
Okay, now I'm upset. Why would they take kids younger than 10 to train for battle? I don't remember how young the Hunger Games went but I know there was a cut off. Although it does make sense to finally tie the multiple narrators together, now Sammy is with Ben Parish.
Since Vosch is apparently a "good guy" then I don't fully understand why they killed everyone in Camp Ashpit. They didn't test them for "green or red" to see if they had aliens in their brains, they just took the youngest kids and blew up the rest. Is it simply that they assumed the adults would rebel against "the man" while the kids would not? And, even if that is the case, Ben and Cassie were the same age and so it doesn't make sense that Ben/Zombie was taken to Camp Haven and Cassie was left behind.
I love that the "code" for a soldier going rogue is "Dorothy" or "off to see the wizard" or "on the yellow brick road".
What's up with the "vivid description of something physical on a person" followed by the phrase "not that I'm noticing these things" in both Cassie and Ben's POV.
Was Ben 15 when Cassie was 16? Is that why Cassie was sentenced to die? Or was it just a matter of them being in different places where different people called the shots?
I love and hate the parallelism of "“No matter what happens out there, I’ll come back for you,” I promise him."
Part Seven:
I can definitely relate to the feeling of being able to tell when a certain person is walking around - and hoe unsettling it is when that person walks or sounds different than normal. Used to happen all the tie at my mom's. And even now, in my apartment, I can usually tell who's here by the heaviness of their steps outside in the hall.
I'm a total dunce for not putting it together than Evan might be The Silencer.
Part Eight:
I know that a part of what makes the book good and interesting is that it twists and turns but I hate feeling like I don't understand what is going on. I agree with Ringer, that it makes more sense that the infested are actually the ones running the Boot Camp Base while the non-infested are running around being gunned down by trained alien pods. Green light and red light - which is actually the enemy? Ringer is Green after getting her Wonderland Pod removed.
That's awful that the Wonderland program goes through every single memory, not just key ones. Although I guess the memory of realizing the truth would be pretty key.
Part Nine:
Weird that Cassie told Evan that she suspected something less than good about him.
I agree with Cassie, Evan shouldn't have burned the house down, to keep hope alive.
Did Evan end up killing the squad Ben left behind? Or a squad sent to find Ben's squad?
That seems really torturous to have Sammy be in boot camp for damn near 3 years while other people are only in for 6 months.
I agree that it does seem way more realistic that aliens are really just a "concept" more than a physical being that's going to appear in front of us one day.
So Cassie must not have been infected if Evan was able to "enter" her. But then she glowed red.
Part Twelve:
I love that Evan (I'm assuming) hacked the system and made the "kill" button read "oops" instead.
I think it's great that Evan knocked the cockroach corpse through the grate and that was what Cassie noticed and proved that Evan was alive.
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by this novel. I always say I hate Science Fiction but this book club has proven that I'm just picky. The story was swift but still not predictable which is great. I don't like the jumping narrator, even if it did make sense at the end, I don't prefer it. I'm a little unsure how I feel about the end. I want to know if Evan made it, I don't really want Cassie and Ben to be too friendly, and I want to know what the next step in the story is. But, I guess that's the sign of a good book because I want to go look up the next book in the series (if there is one).
--||--
Quotes Worth Mentioning
Part One:
"My parents didn’t know the first thing about that myth. They just thought the name [Cassiopeia] was pretty."
"My parents didn’t know the first thing about that myth. They just thought the name [Cassiopeia] was pretty."
"It’s been a long time since humans were prey animals. A
hundred thousand years or so. But buried deep in our
genes the memory remains: the awareness of the gazelle,
the instinct of the antelope."
Part Two:
Part Two:
"One
in ten? And here I was thinking the plague was a death
sentence. I couldn’t be happier."
“God doesn’t call the equipped, son. God equips the called. And you have been called.”
Part Three:
"A moment comes in war when the last line must be crossed. The line that separates what you hold dear from what total war demands. If he couldn’t cross that line, the battle was over, and he was lost."
Part Four:
"Are pervs only pervs if you don’t find them attractive?"
Part Five:
"All that he has experienced, all that he remembers, and even those things that he can’t remember; everything that makes up the personality of Sammy Sullivan is pulled and sorted and transmitted."
Part Six:
"It isn’t up to me to break his heart; that’s time’s job."
"...he [Tank] will be consumed in fire, his ashes mixing with the gray smoke and carried aloft in a column of superheated air, eventually to settle over us in particles too fine to see or feel. He’ll stay with us—on us—until we shower that night, washing what’s left of Tank into the drains connected to the pipes connected to the septic tanks, where he will mix with our excrement before leaching into the ground."
Part Seven:
"I touch his knee, then pull my hand back quickly. After the first touch, touching becomes too easy."
"“I think that’s the way it is,” he says after a minute. “When you love someone. Something happens to them, and it’s a punch in the heart. Not like a punch in the heart; a real punch in the heart.”"
"Watching him step lightly off the back porch and trot toward the trees, heading west, toward the highway, where, as everyone knows, fresh game like deer and rabbit and Homo sapiens like to congregate."
"In every creepy movie ever made, the barn is the prime nesting ground for the things you don’t know you’re looking for and always regret finding."
Part Eight:
“I lit up after you pulled out the implant. The eyepieces don’t pick up infestations. They react when there’s no implant.”
“They lit up on those three infesteds. Why would the eyepieces light up if they weren’t?”
“They lit up because those people weren’t infested. They’re just like us, the only difference being they don’t have implants.
"Take us in. Tag and bag us. Train us to kill. Anyone who isn’t tagged will glow green, and when they defend themselves or challenge us, shoot at us like that sniper up there—well, that just proves they’re the enemy, doesn’t it? Until we’ve killed everyone who isn’t tagged. Ben, we’re the 5th Wave.”
"It’s a lie. Wonderland. Camp Haven. The war itself. How easy it was. How incredibly easy, even after all that we’d been through. Or maybe it was easy because of all we’d been through. They gathered us in. They emptied us out. They filled us up with hate and cunning and the spirit of vengeance. So they could send us out again. To kill what’s left of the rest of us. Check and mate."
Part Nine:
"A flower to the rain."
Part Eleven:
"If the world breaks a million and one promises, can you trust the million and second?"
Part Twelve:
"Ben like a doctor. Me like a soldier. Like two kids playing dress-up. A fake doctor and a fake soldier debating with themselves whether to blow the other one’s brains out. Those first few moments between me and Ben Parish were very strange."
""The minute we decide that one person doesn’t matter anymore, they’ve won.”
Beneath a sky crowded with a billion stars. I don’t care what the stars say about how small we are. One, even the smallest, weakest, most insignificant one, matters."
--Makes me think of the Doctor Who Quote "900 years of time and space and I've never met anyone who wasn't important."
“God doesn’t call the equipped, son. God equips the called. And you have been called.”
Part Three:
"A moment comes in war when the last line must be crossed. The line that separates what you hold dear from what total war demands. If he couldn’t cross that line, the battle was over, and he was lost."
Part Four:
"Are pervs only pervs if you don’t find them attractive?"
Part Five:
"All that he has experienced, all that he remembers, and even those things that he can’t remember; everything that makes up the personality of Sammy Sullivan is pulled and sorted and transmitted."
Part Six:
"It isn’t up to me to break his heart; that’s time’s job."
"...he [Tank] will be consumed in fire, his ashes mixing with the gray smoke and carried aloft in a column of superheated air, eventually to settle over us in particles too fine to see or feel. He’ll stay with us—on us—until we shower that night, washing what’s left of Tank into the drains connected to the pipes connected to the septic tanks, where he will mix with our excrement before leaching into the ground."
Part Seven:
"I touch his knee, then pull my hand back quickly. After the first touch, touching becomes too easy."
"“I think that’s the way it is,” he says after a minute. “When you love someone. Something happens to them, and it’s a punch in the heart. Not like a punch in the heart; a real punch in the heart.”"
"Watching him step lightly off the back porch and trot toward the trees, heading west, toward the highway, where, as everyone knows, fresh game like deer and rabbit and Homo sapiens like to congregate."
"In every creepy movie ever made, the barn is the prime nesting ground for the things you don’t know you’re looking for and always regret finding."
Part Eight:
“I lit up after you pulled out the implant. The eyepieces don’t pick up infestations. They react when there’s no implant.”
“They lit up on those three infesteds. Why would the eyepieces light up if they weren’t?”
“They lit up because those people weren’t infested. They’re just like us, the only difference being they don’t have implants.
"Take us in. Tag and bag us. Train us to kill. Anyone who isn’t tagged will glow green, and when they defend themselves or challenge us, shoot at us like that sniper up there—well, that just proves they’re the enemy, doesn’t it? Until we’ve killed everyone who isn’t tagged. Ben, we’re the 5th Wave.”
"It’s a lie. Wonderland. Camp Haven. The war itself. How easy it was. How incredibly easy, even after all that we’d been through. Or maybe it was easy because of all we’d been through. They gathered us in. They emptied us out. They filled us up with hate and cunning and the spirit of vengeance. So they could send us out again. To kill what’s left of the rest of us. Check and mate."
Part Nine:
"A flower to the rain."
Part Eleven:
"If the world breaks a million and one promises, can you trust the million and second?"
Part Twelve:
"Here, in this place. A thousand years later and a million miles from the halls of George Barnard High School. Here, in the belly of the beast at the bottom of the world, standing right in front of me. Benjamin Thomas Parish."
"Ben like a doctor. Me like a soldier. Like two kids playing dress-up. A fake doctor and a fake soldier debating with themselves whether to blow the other one’s brains out. Those first few moments between me and Ben Parish were very strange."
""The minute we decide that one person doesn’t matter anymore, they’ve won.”
Beneath a sky crowded with a billion stars. I don’t care what the stars say about how small we are. One, even the smallest, weakest, most insignificant one, matters."
--Makes me think of the Doctor Who Quote "900 years of time and space and I've never met anyone who wasn't important."
