Justin Cronin, Rick Yancey end their series on high note

Here’s a look at what’s new on Paste BN’s Best-Selling Books list…

Third time’s a charm: Two best-selling dystopian trilogies are going out with a bang.

Published on the same day (May 24), the concluding volumes of Rick Yancey’s young-adult The 5th Wave series and Justin Cronin’s The Passage trilogy both land high on Paste BN’s best-seller list this week. (The full list will publish on Thursday.)

Yancey’s The Last Star (Putnam) is No. 2, while Cronin’s The City of Mirrors (Ballantine) is right behind him at No. 3. (Both trail Jojo Moyes’ juggernaut, the romance Me Before You, which is No. 1 for the third straight week. Sales have been steamy because the film adaptation opens on Friday.)

The 5th Wave, the first book in Yancey’s series about young people battling aliens, made it to No. 1 on the list. It became a movie starring Chloe Grace Moretz. (It’s back in the top 50 this week at No. 36. )

Cronin’s previous high was No. 5 with The Passage, the first book in his post-apocalyptic vampire series.

In a video Q&A with fans on Paste BN’s website, Cronin explained that his series began 10 years ago when his then-8-year-old daughter “dared me to write it and it changed the course of my life.”

Ending the series about a little girl caught in a nightmarish government experiment wasn’t easy, he said. “It was kind of an emotional experience for me.”