Category: Serena’s Reviews

Animorphs #35: “The Proposal”

Publishing Info: Scholastic Paperbacks, November 1999

Where Did I Get this Book: own it!

Book Description: The Yeerks are stepping up their invasion tactics. And Marco has problems of his own. His dad is starting to date. But Marco knows his mother might still be alive.

Narrator: Marco

Plot: I mean, look at that cover? You know it’s going to be bad when that’s the cover. I didn’t have a whole lot of memories from this book, other than the fact that Marco’s dad wants to get married to a woman who owns the featured “evil poodle.” I had successfully blocked out the rest of the story. Or, more likely, merged it with Rachel’s crocodile-allergy story from which this book LIFTED ITS ENTIRE PLOT LINE! But I will vent about that in my small review section at the end. In the mean time…

Marco and his dad’s night of video game playing is interrupted by a phone call from Marco’s math teacher, a woman whom is dad is now dating. To drown out the mushy gushing the two are exchanging via the phone, Marco begins channel surfing. He gets caught up on a self-help talk show where an uber chill man named Tennant is famous for giving his calm, collected advice to callers to the show. Marco recognizes the self-help guru as fairly famous and sits back to watch, only to be bolted out of his seat when he hears Tennant suggest to one caller that the best place to help her loneliness is the perfectly lovely organization called “The Sharing.”

Marco immediately calls Jake and arranges to meet with the group at Cassie’s barn. He begins to morph his usual osprey, but halfway through, things go terribly wrong: he ends up as a half osprey/half lobster monstrosity. Marco manages to morph out, but is too shaken to morph again and instead rides his bike to the barn. There, the others rib him for taking so long, but he quickly distracts them with news of Tennant. Surveillance is called for.

Over the next three days, the team takes turns watching Tennant and establish that he has a very fixed routine involving jogging, working from home while cuddling his pet birds, and airing his show in the evenings. Another pair had already caught him sneaking in through a known Yeerk pool entrance, so his status as a Controller is confirmed. While Marco and Cassie are on watch, Cassie asks how Marco is doing, having caught on to his being shaken recently. He ends up venting about his dad’s dating life and the struggles of knowing that his mom could still be alive.

The next day, they decide to take their scouting to a new level and infiltrate his house. Tennant’s pet birds roam free throughout the house, so Marco and Rachel sneak in to acquire and morph two of them. The others wait to provide back-up should anything go around. Parakeet!Marco and Rachel head into Tennant’s office. There, they see him writing an email to a CEO of the television company that runs his current show. It appears that he is going to be offered an award in the next week followed by a promotion to prime time where he will have an even larger audience to promote The Sharing to.

He gets a phone call from Visser Three, and while he talks to him, discussing plans, Marco feels himself beginning to lose control of his morph. He begins squawking and poops on Tennant’s desk. After Tennant gets off the phone, he explodes into a manic rage, screaming about how he hates all of these animals and he’ll be happy when he’s free to kill them all. He grabs parakeet!Marco and begins crushing him in his hands. He’s only stopped by his host body that begins to fight back. He lets Marco go, but then decides to play the little game his host plays with his pets: getting the birds to say their own names. Of course, Marco doesn’t know the name of the parakeet he morphed.

Tennant quickly realizes that he is an Andalite in morph and hits him with a book, breaking his small bird body. The other Animorphs barge in in battle morphs and Tennant calls for Hork Bajir back-ups who seemingly appear out from….somewhere? Marco manages to de-morph, but when he tries to morph his gorilla battle morph, he again splices two morphs together, this time a fish and the gorilla. Barely making it back to human, he manages to shut the office door in Tennant’s face while he and the other Animorphs make a break for it out of the window.

Back in the barn, the others are furious with Marco for not revealing his morphing problem. Ax suggests that he may be struggling due to some type of stress factor in his life. Jake immediately benches Marco until he gets things under control. Marco heads home, frustrated. But he doesn’t find any relief there, since his dad’s girlfriend is visiting, and what’s worse, she has her evil toy poodle with her. The dog starts barking and biting at Marco, and he ends up acquiring it to get it to settle down, before hiding out in his room.

Marco’s ban doesn’t last long, however, since their new mission is coming up and the team needs him. They decide that the best course of action is to expose Tennant as the wacko he is. Even by Yeerk standards, it is clear that the Yeerk in Tennant is barely clinging to sanity, and if he was to explode like he did at his home, but in a public place, his future as a TV personality would be ruined. To do this, they decide to crash the awards ceremony later that week.

The team sneaks into the banquet halls as cockroaches and make their way to the kitchen. Their plan is to crawl onto Tennant’s salad plate with spider!Marco directing them to the right plate. Once in the kitchen, Marco demorphs in a bathroom and tries to morph the spider. Instead, he ends up as a mixture of spider and poodle. A bunch of kitchen workers spot him and chase him. The others ask what is going on, but Marco puts them off, saying everything is fine. Using thought-speak, he is finally able to scare off the kitchen workers. He then demorphs, grabs a kitchen uniform, and tries to pass himself off as a busboy. He gets the rest of the Animorphs onto one of the plate and tells the cook to set it aside specifically for Tennant. He then gets caught up in other kitchen chores by a tyrannical chef. Once he gets a chance to breath, he sees that all of the plates have been mixed up again and are heading out. Instead of being placed in front of Tennant, the plate ends up in front of of Zac Hanson (cuz of course a teen pop group is also at this B-level TV event). Much screaming ensues, but Tennant is unmoved. The Animorphs manage to scurry away.

They come up with Plan B. Ax morphs his human morph and the others morph flea. Jake instructs Ax and Marco to deliver the fleas to Tennant, but Marco gets trapped outside, leaving Ax to do this. Predictably, whenever Ax is near food, things to not go well. Marco gets inside just in time to see Ax licking the plates clean from Tennant’s table. However, he does manage to transfer the fleas to Tennant. Marco convinces the outraged people that he and Ax are just really big fans and they escape to the back of the room to watch Tennant’s speech. The Animorph!fleas make their way beneath Tennant’s wig (which they discovered when parakeet!Rachel accidentally nabbed it while trying to dive bomb Tennant the other day) and begin biting. Tennant twitches and squirms but manages to get through his speech without blowing up. Defeated, the team returns home.

The next day, Marco’s week gets even worse when his dad tells him that he is thinking of marrying the teacher girlfriend. He wants to make sure it’s ok with Marco. Marco simply bolts. Later, Cassie shows up at his house asking if he wants to talk. She says that there’s really no one outside of the group who can listen, but she’s willing to do it. And she knows that he had another failed morph while in the kitchen; she could tell from the sound of his voice. Marco vents that his stress isn’t special, they all have burdens they’re carrying, some of them (like Tobias) have much worse going on than him. Cassie shares a story about her anger when she sees hurt animals that have been harmed by cruel people. She says that her dad said to focus on what is: the hurt animal and how to help it. So in this case, is his dad happy now?

Running out of time, the team comes up with another plan. Poodle!Marco begins stalking Tennant. Whenever he is out in public, and unable to respond, the terror that is the poodle shows up and begins biting him, but Tennat’s animal-loving persona can’t respond. All week this goes on, with Marco succeeding in controlling his morphs the entire time.

Finally, the night of the first prime time airing of the show arrives. The team stake out the studio in various morphs, ready for Marco to make the grand scene once the program begins airing. But as he begins to morph poodle, his ailment strikes again and he ends up as a mix of a poodle and a polar bear. He loses control of the morph and goes after Tennant, only barely able stop from killing him. Cassie wants him to talk about his feelings to help him stable himself. Jake tells her that he loves her and cares for her, but shut it. The two bicker a bit, but Jake shuts her down saying now is not the time for her approach, and Marco just needs to suck it up and deal with his crap. Jake finally breaks through by bringing up Marco’s own philosophy (that he, in turn got from his mom), that you can either laugh or cry at the struggles of the world. Marco gets it together and finishes his morph to poodle. Seeing that “the Andalite” is now fully helpless as a small dog, Tennant grabs poodle!Marco and begins strangling him. Just then the cameras go on. Everyone is horrified and Tennant immediately releases Marco and tries to say it was a mistake. The Animorphs all bail

The clip goes viral and soon enough Tennant’s future as a TV star is over. The book ends at the very slap-dash wedding between his Dad and the teacher who get married two weeks later. Marco is still struggling with it all, but has come to accept it. But never that dog.

One evening the phone rings. The answering machine picks it up, and it’s Marco’s mother, asking for him. Dun dun dun.

The Comic Relief: The unfortunate bit of this whole thing is that after the very real, very serious events of the book before it, this one just seems…beneath him. Like, I get that this book is trying to fill a niche of dealing with a real-life issues that reader kids may be dealing with, a widowed parent re-marrying. But in the world of these books, Marco’s character specifically has had to deal with so many traumatizing things with his parents, that the fact that he would break down to the point of failing his morphing over this particular issue is just hard to believe. Let’s go through it. In the first few books, he’s dealing with the death of a parent. On top of that, he’s had to parent himself as his dad has completely lost it and hasn’t been parenting him at all. This has been going on for who knows how long. Then he finds out his mother is alive, but the leader of the Yeerk invasion. Then he thinks she dies, several books later. Then he rediscovers her, but has to plan her death himself. And now, again, he’s unsure whether she’s alive. So yes, I understand the quandary he is in with his father re-marrying, and I would have been completely on board for that being a through-line in the story that he is dealing with. But to make it the crux of the story by having it impact his morphing…nah, not buying it. That’s not the Marco we’ve come to know through all of these books. Cold, calculating, brutal Marco isn’t going to break down over just this. Even Marco thinks it’s out of character:

I was going insane. Hard to believe that after all the craziness I’d been through since this war started, a simple, everyday, domestic problem would be the thing to push me over the edge.

And then, on top of that, Marco’s usual bits, even in books that aren’t his, weren’t up to snuff. The author of this book pretty much recycled Marco jokes from the past (the back-and-forth between Marco and Ax about Ax’s use of “your minutes” could almost have been directly lifted from another book. Not only wasn’t it funny, but it’s boring to read the same joke over and over, especially without any new twist), and also re-used Marco’s philosophy from book 5. Didn’t expand on it. Didn’t bring anything new to the table, pretty much AGAIN lifted it directly from there and plopped it down here to serve the exact same purpose. It was incredibly frustrating, especially since Marco books are some of my favorites.

Our Fearless Leader: Jake tries to bench Marco when he realizes that he’s struggling with his morphing. But, unlike Rachel and her crocodile experience, Marco’s breakdowns are further apart. He goes several days and many morphs without any issue, so it’s easy to understand why Jake would let him back on missions. Not only is Marco’s gorilla morph one of their best battle morphs, but we know that Jake recognizes Marco’s smarts as the best planner of the group. So benching him is a big loss. In the end, when Marco’s struggling once again, Jake comes down on him hard. He tells Marco to get it together, no excuses. Fix it. That’s an order. Cassie tries to argue that Marco just needs to talk about it. But Jake shuts her down firmly. They’re in the middle of a mission and Marco just needs to deal with his crap. Period. Jake also must have talked with Marco about Marco’s life approach, since he knows Marco’s whole bit about looking at life with a sense of humor. We, as readers, know this because Marco shared it with us in an internal narrative back in book 5. But we never hear him tell it to Jake. Instead, it’s a nice reference to how close these two are and that they must have talked about stuff like this at some point.

Xena, Warrior Princess: Rachel tries to give Marco a lecture about hiding his morphing issues from the group. He rightly calls her out on the hypocrisy of this given her crocodile-lying incident. She agrees that someone else should take over lecturing Marco from this point. She’s also paired up with Marco on the parakeet mission, of course furthering my secondary Marco/Rachel focus. She also dive bombs Tennant while morphed as a parakeet, proving that the morph itself has very little affect on Rachel’s general plan of action. She will attack with whatever she has available.

A Hawk’s Life: Poor Tobias gets very, very little to do in this book. I mean, even adding up his lines of dialogue, it’s pretty sad. If anything, he mostly serves as a point to fuel Marco’s self-disgust. In the very beginning, after Marco’s first failed morph, he comes down hard on Tobias and ends up feeling guilty about it. And later, when he’s talking to Cassie, he says all of the other Animorphs have stressers and aren’t freaking out. He particularly emphasizes Tobias’s situation. Other than that, Tobias mostly just serves as the eyes in the air and joins in on the group activities, like being a flea biting Tennant’s head.

Peace, Love, and Animals: Cassie has quite a lot in this book, mostly utilizing her super power as the group counselor. She is quick to understand why Marco is stressed and suggest that he needs someone to talk to. Right away, on the first scouting trip, she manages to get Marco to open up and vent his frustrations. She’s also the only one to pick up on the fact that he had another morph melt-down while in the kitchen at the banquet. And she then takes it upon herself to come to his house and offer supporting, knowing that he doesn’t have anyone else to talk to about all of this. She shares some nice philosophies and ways of thinking about the situation with his dad that do seem to help, though Jake’s method, in the end, is the one to break through.

E.T./Ax Phone Home: You’d think they’d learn about Ax and food! I mean, yes, I get the fact that Ax has the only human form that doesn’t put them all at risk, but man, he’s got to win the award for having the least control over any given morph. Any other animal, any other morph, sure they all might struggle here and there, but they usually get the hang of it, especially with morphs they’ve used more often. But man, Ax has zero self-control in that morph. Is it worth the risk having him go in? I mean, I’m finding it hard to believe that had Marco even been there when Ax was clearing tables that it would have made any difference.

Best (?) Body Horror Moment: It’s a hard toss between all of the gross morph combinations that Marco experiences and the fleas biting Tennant’s head. I mean, I think I’ve got to go with the second. Sure, they’ve “accidentally” bitten other people as fleas, but the whole goal of this mission was to crawl under some skeevy Controller’s wig and bite away. Even Cassie calls it out:

<This is the grossest thing we have ever done,> Cassie complained.

Couples Watch!: In the very beginning, Rachel is angry at Marco for calling the meeting in the barn because he interrupted her and Tobias watching “Felicity.” Awwww, cute dates! Jake does tell Cassie he loves her….just before he tells her to shut up. So….romantic? They also have a nice little spat after this about how to handle Marco’s ongoing morphing issues. This is one of those small moments that kind of highlights why this relationship was always doomed. They really don’t have that much in common in the way they look at the world and how they make decisions. It’s clear why Jake is attracted to and relies on Cassie, she provides much-needed emotional support and insight into others. And Cassie…thinks Jake’s good looking? But when you get down to it, they have very different philosophies, so while I can see why they end up together throughout the series, you can also see the tension between them, more so than Tobias and Rachel who have some more obvious similarities and mutual supports.

If Only Visser Three had  Mustache to Twirl: Visser Three is taking an extended absence! This is how many books in a row now that he hasn’t made an in-person appearance? The phone call doesn’t even include any dialogue from him, though we hear a bit of Tennant’s side of things and apparently part of the discussion is Visser Three ranting about how he looks forward to the day when the Yeerks can wipe out any unnecessary life forms on Earth. Obviously not the cats, though. Visser Three loves cats.

As for Tennant himself, we see yet another crazed Yeerk. It’s kind of hard to believe that this many crazed Yeerks ended up in positions of power. I mean, you have Tobias’s experiences several books ago and now this. You’d think with all the Yeerks available, they’d be able to assign more stable Yeerks to these crucial roles. Maybe it’s supposed to be yet another reflection on Visser Three’s own questionable psyche. That maybe, somehow, he gravitates towards Yeerks who are a bit unbalanced, just like himself. Chapman’s Yeerk, for example, seems perfectly steady and unlikely to have been caught up in the nonsense the Animorphs were pulling here. Especially because with all of the poodle-attacking lead-up, trying to catch him on TV was a pretty predictable move by the “Andalite bandits.”

Adult Ugly Crying at a Middle Grade Book: Really, nothing. Marco books usually have some good stuff with reflections on his situation with his mother, but there really isn’t much here. From the very sophisticated, cold Marco that we saw only a few books ago, in a lot of ways this doesn’t even feel like the same character. It’s hard to believe that this situation is what would cause the breakdown in stress, and I could just never really buy it. From the big tragedies presented in the past of a son setting up his mother to die, it’s hard to feel much about the struggles of his Dad marrying a lady with a poodle.

What  a Terrible Plan, Guys!: Again, Ax with the food. And along those lines, the whole business at the banquet. With everything that went wrong in the kitchen, it’s hard to understand what exactly their plan had been to ensure that Tennant ended up with the correct plate. It doesn’t seem surprising that this would fail. And then when they morph fleas…there’s literally a line that says “somehow we managed to morph fleas.” Really? “Somehow we managed…” It’s the most cop-out explanation of all cop-out explanations. They would have all had to go through human morphs and Ax had to go through Andalite to get to his human. And there is ZERO explanation for how they manage this in a crowded room. It’s incredibly stupid.

Favorite Quote:

<I am confused,> Ax said. <Are you saying that your father is considering taking this woman as a new mate?>

“You could put it that way,” Cassie said.

“But I’d rather you didn’t,” I added. “He’s just -”

<Ah. Perhaps your father is Young and Restless. Those who are Young and Restless frequently change mates.>

And I couldn’t have put my feelings for this book any better myself:

<Someday when this is all over people will ask us about the war against the Yeerks,> Tobias said. <Let’s leave this part out>

Scorecard: Yeerks 8, Animorphs 14

No score! Sure, the Animorphs technically succeed. But I’m mad at having to read a repeated book essentially, so this is what happens, I take it out on my score sheet.

Rating: I really disliked this book. Not because it’s the dumbest one out there (pretty hard to top the horse!Controllers/Andalite toilet book or the split Rachels), but because I’ve already read this freaking book!!! Whomever was the ghost writer for this thing has to be, up to this point, the laziest of the bunch (just looked it up, this guy also wrote the polar bear!Marco book which I also didn’t love, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised). Others have come up with some pretty wacky and questionable bits, but at least those were original. This book is essentially the exact same book as Rachel’s crocodile story. Not only do you have the same morphing problem (though at least Rachel’s allergy made more sense, as Marco’s issue, here, just comes out of nowhere conveniently for plot purposes and then disappears again, also, conveniently for plot purposes), but the Yeerk plot was the same: some famous guy getting on TV and telling people to join The Sharing and the Animorphs breaking it up by crazy shenanigans on a TV studio! I mean, c’mon, at least mix and match your plot points!! Re-use one or the other, but both together just highlights the lack of creative thought in this book. On top of the two major plot points being directly lifted, you have the re-use of jokes (the “minutes” thing) and repetition of Marco’s major philosophy, with nothing added. By the end of the book, I was just mad. The stupidity of other books is frustrating enough, but again, at least those were original. A bit thumbs down for this one. All the more upsetting coming off the rare good Cassie book, only to have the usually good Marco book turn out to be a hot mess. The only good thing about this book, really, is the last paragraph or two that sets up “Visser.”

Note: I’m not going to rate these books since I can’t be objective at all! But I’ll give a one sentence conclusion and you can take from that what you will!

Animorphs #34: “The Prophecy”

Publishing Info: Scholastic Paperbacks, October 1999

Where Did I Get this Book: own it!

Book Description: Cassie’s losing her mind. But she’s gaining the mind of another. Aldrea — daughter of Seerow, Andalite Prince. Aldrea’s persona, her memory, and a valuable bit of information now belong to Cassie.

Narrator: Cassie

Plot: Another book where I only had vague memories! Most notable, perhaps, was my lack of memories at being frustrated by a Cassie book, which had been the standard for the last few. And there’s a reason! I think this, so far, is the best Cassie book in the series! I always want to give book #4 credit for introducing Ax, but, really, it’s not that great what with the magical whale nonsense and some of Cassie’s “ponderings” on the morality of morphing dolphins. Is the fact that this is only half a “Cassie book” since she shares the narrative with Aldrea part of the reason I enjoyed it?

But I also think it’s legitimately one of the better ones for Cassie herself. Let’s dive in!

We start with the required mini-adventure that seems to lead off all the books now. This time it’s cat!Rachel and rat!Cassie invading a teacher’s house to retrieve a piece of paper with an “I love Jake” doodle that Cassie accidentally turned in with her homework. Teasing happens, but they manage to retrieve it.

Back at the barn, Cassie is surprised to find Jara Hamee waiting for her. He’s come to fetch the Animorphs to the Hork Bajir valley where something shocking as occurred: an Arn, the alien species that created the Hork Bajir long ago, has arrived and has a request.

The Animorphs all fly to the valley. Once there, Toby, the Hork Bajir seer, explains that the Arn arrived out of nowhere in a stolen Yeerk ship and wants the Hork Bajirs’ help, but she wanted the Animorphs’ insight before making any decisions. The Arn claims to be the last of his species. But he doesn’t want to go quietly into the night and has come up with a way to try to reclaim his, and the Hork Bajirs’, home world. Before Aldrea and Dak died, they had managed to capture a Yeerk ship that was loaded with weapons. With these, the Arn proposes to gather some Hork Bajir DNA and create another guerilla warfare combatant group on the home world that can fight the Yeerks who remain there. The Hork Bajir are all willing to contribute DNA. But the hold up becomes clear: the Arn doesn’t know where the cache of weapons was hidden, only Aldrea herself knew this. But, luckily (?) for everyone, before she died, Aldrea had her personality/memories transferred into this jar thing that can be used to bring her back, sharing the mind and body of a host. Once she locates the weapons, she can be returned to the jar. The danger is that Aldrea herself will need to choose to leave her host body, making it quite a risk.

Rachel, of course, volunteers, as does Toby. After some debate, they all agree it’s for the best, and the ritual begins. But it is Cassie who is chosen. Caught completely by surprise, Cassie still knows that the only choice she really has is to accept. From this point onward, the story breaks into alternating chapters between Cassie and Aldrea.

Sharing minds and bodies, Cassie and Aldrea struggle to find a balance. Aldrea is shocked, confused, and scared by this sudden turn of events. From her perspective, she was just alive, with Dak and their child Seerow on the Hork Bajir homeworld. She’s now awoken to find herself in the mind of an alien girl, years later, and that both her son and husband are long dead. Her, too. There is also a lot of tension and mistrust between Ax and Aldrea. But eventually, they explain what they need from her. Aldrea is able to keep some of her thoughts private and realizes that she doesn’t know where the cache is, it was hidden after she had transferred her memories. But still wanting to travel back to her home, she agrees to the mission anyways.

The Arn, Toby, and the Animorphs all take off in the Yeerk ship on their way to the Hork Bajir world. The Chee remain behind to pose as the Animorphs while they’re away. Days later, when they arrive, they get in a brief battle with an Andalite ship that is patrolling near the Hork Bajir home world (the Andalite only sees the Yeerk ship). They manage to escape by using Aldrea’s skills as a pilot and markswoman. This gains her further trust with the group. She also begins to appreciate Jake’s leadership skills as he makes calls.

On the home world, Aldrea is shocked and saddened to see the destruction the Yeerks have brought to her planet. Many of the trees have been razed and the land is barren in many places. The Arn leads the group down into one of the deep trenches where his civilization used to exist. As they discuss next steps, the mental barrier between Aldrea and Cassie slips for a second and Cassie realizes that Aldrea lied, and doesn’t know where the cache is. The other are furious and say that Aldrea has lost their trust.

There is nothing to be done, however, but to move forward with Aldrea’s best guess as to where she might have hidden it. They all morph Hork-Bajir and swing through the massive forest. Aldrea leads them to the valley that used to be her home with Dak and Seerow. But the Yeerks have destroyed it, razing the trees and damming up a portion of the valley to now serve as a Yeerk pool. Aldrea is crushed, the reality of her situation finally hitting home. However, she is able to spot one tree that is part of the dam that has a marking that she and Dak had put on it. That’s where the cache would be. The problem is that the entrance to the hollowed out tree is on the other side, submerged in the Yeerk pool itself.

Jake and the others come up with a crazy plan. Aldrea calls it crazy and is horrified when they decide to move forward. Cassie tells her that they been pulling off crazy missions for quite a while now, and that she trusts Jake’s leadership skills. The team sets up to put the plan in action. Of course, it all relies on Cassie and her unique morphing skills.

All of the Animorphs morph bugs and climb into osprey!Cassie’s mouth. She then flies as high as she can above the Yeerk pool and then begins to let herself fall. As she falls, she slowly begins demorphing, saving her wings for last. At one point, she manages to completely demorph her lower half and begin the whale morph, all while still retaining her wings. As they fall, Aldrea is in awe of what Cassie is managing, never having heard of anyone being able to control their morphing like this. But as Cassie draws things out (to avoid being spotted as a human girl somehow on the Hork Bajir planet), Aldrea begins to panic and tries to take control of Cassie’s body. Cassie manages to not only continue her complicated morph but shut down Aldrea’s attempts as well. Finally, fully whale, Cassie lands in the Yeerk pool. In her huge mouth, the other Animorphs begin their next morphs. She surfaces and Ax, Andalite!Tobias, and Hork Bajir!Marco leap out onto the dam and start fighting off the Yeerks. Shark!Jake and shark!Rachel take care of the Taxxons powering towards them in the water. Lastly, Aldrea/Cassie demorph from whale and morph back to Hork Bajir. In this form, they are able to open the secret door into the tree and they all escape into it. There they find the Yeerk shop and the cache of weapons.

There is only one way out, however. They all load into the ship and blast their way out, creating a massive sink hole into which thousands of Yeerks are sucked down to their deaths. Cassie mourns this and Aldrea, again, wonders at these humans. When they get back to the Arn’s home, Aldrea knows that it is time. After seeing her home destroyed and realizing there is nothing for her in this life (and that she cannot wrestle control away from Cassie), she agrees to return to the jar. She also insists that Toby, her remaining kin, not stay on the Hork Bajir home world. She wants one family member, at least, to not get caught up in a guerrilla war. With the Animorphs’ help, she puts on a scene saying she is trying to take over Cassie. Ax grabs Toby and tells Aldrea that they are keeping her as a hostage if Aldrea doesn’t leave. Aldrea leaves Cassie and slowly fades away. The other return, knowing that Toby will realize it was a trick, but that by then it would be too late.

Peace, Love, and Animals: This is actually a really good book for Cassie. The personal arcs/plot points fall directly into her wheelhouse. And the action itself is of the kind that could be accomplished only by her.

In the beginning, she is sure that Aldrea’s spirit won’t choose her. Aldrea was known as an independent, fierce woman. Naturally, they all assume she’ll gravitate towards Rachel or Toby. After being chosen, Cassie then spends most of the rest of the book wondering why she was chosen. As Aldrea begins to push the boundaries on controlling Cassie’s body, Cassie begins to suspect that Aldrea must have sensed some sort of weakness in her, one that she could exploit to remain in the living world. But it is only in the end when Cassie asks Aldrea that she finds out the truth: Aldrea can’t know for sure, as she wasn’t consciously choosing, but she suspects that she knew she would be tempted to stay and that she needed to be with someone who could remind her of her own “humanity” essentially and strong enough to show her that. I think this fits very well with Cassie as a character.

Also, Aldrea really struggles throughout this book, as would be expected for someone who just woke up years later and finds out they have lost everything. Cassie’s simple sorrows for her and empathy are comforting to Aldrea. Lord knows Rachel wouldn’t have pulled that off. And Toby would also have had some self-interest involved in a way that Cassie’s simple focus on supporting Aldrea’s emotions didn’t.

The morphing scene at the end was also awesome. We’ve seen Cassie pull off some amazing stunts before (all seemingly involving morphing whale while falling from the sky), but what she manages here takes it to a new level. I don’t believe we’ve ever seen her (or obviously, anyone) pull off morphing two different animals at once, getting her legs fully human and started up on whale while her arms are still osprey and waiting to go through the human stage. It’s pretty incredible and Aldrea’s own shock and awe is a nice cipher for readers to understand how truly extraordinary what Cassie is pulling off is. Throughout the book, Cassie also notes to herself that even while she has a particular talent, the Animorphs in general are all probably morphing experts, as compared to the Andalites who rarely actually use the ability, including Aldrea.

Aldrea: It’s great having another book with Aldrea in it. Through her memories, we get more insight into what her and Dak’s life was like with their baby before the end of everything. Obviously, we know it ended tragically, but there are some sweet moments between the two that we get to see through her memories and dreams.

She is also, understandably, dealing with a lot of anger, confusion and denial throughout this book. She’s never even heard of humans and now suddenly she’s on their planet inside the body of one. She’s rightly skeptical of the Arn’s motivations for his whole plot, and sees the Animorphs as children and finds it difficult to trust and follow their lead. Further, she and Ax have an ongoing conflict, each looking on the other with a sense of distaste.

The space fight scene is a good moment to highlight her skills as a combatant, and while they are all in Hork Bajir morph on the planet, we see just how comfortable she is in that form, having truly adopted it as her own.

We also see her struggle with the idea of returning to her unconscious state. She never outright plots to take over Cassie, but when, in a moment of panic, she tries to take over while they’re falling through the air, the realization that she actually can’t is a helpful push for her to realize just how wrong what she had been considering was.

It’s also a nice touch, in the end, for her to feel so strongly about Toby returning to Earth, not wanting the same life for Toby as the one Aldrea lead.

Our Fearless Leader: Jake really highlights his strength by repeatedly standing up to Aldrea. It’s mentioned several times that she’s essentially a war hero straight out of history. So it’s natural that there might be tension regarding who makes the calls. Jake never wavers, however, and as the story progresses, Aldrea begins to see why he has been so successful for as long as he has and why the other Animorphs trust his judgement with some of their more crazy plans.

Xena, Warrior Princess: Rachel, of course, volunteers immediately and is very confused when she isn’t chosen. She outright asks Aldrea about it early in the book, but Aldrea doesn’t really know at that point. Along with Jake, Rachel is also the most on the alert for signs that Aldrea may be trying to take over Cassie or not give her up. There were a few instances when Aldrea talked from Cassie’s mouth and Rachel was immediately angry and upset, insisting that she let Cassie back.

A Hawk’s Life: Tobias doesn’t have much in this book, other than it being recognized that he is the closest to the Hork Bajir and the one who had heard Aldrea’s story from Jara Hamee originally. When they’re all on the Hork Bajir planet, he stays in hawk morph and struggles to navigate around the massive trees.

The Comic Relief: Marco also doesn’t have much. He has a few good one-liners here and there. His usually commentary on how insane all of their plans are. And there is a moment when Jake is in the middle of a big “leader” speech where he interrupts him to make a joke. Cassie notes this as a good service that Marco provides his best friend when he thinks Jake is getting too serious or caught up in things.

E.T./Ax Phone Home: Ax struggles the most with the appearance of Aldrea. His normal Andalite arrogance is amped up when presented with the daughter of the Andalite who essentially created the Yeerk threat. Not only does he have the usual Andalite disdain for Seerow, and through him, his daughter, but his own prejudices regarding Andalite superiority are on display. He cannot understand why an Andalite would choose to live as a  Hork Bajir. Aldrea does a good job calling him out on both of these fronts, noting that Elfangor did the same by giving the Animorphs their powers and naming his prejudice for what it is with regards to her decision to become a Hork Bajir. By the end of the book, both have come to an understanding and appreciation for the other, but it’s rough there at the start.

Best (?) Body Horror Moment: Cassie has one of her biggest moments of panic and horror when Aldrea takes over the morphing process when they morph wolf back on Earth as a practice run. For the first time, the morphing process is described as being painful, likely largely due to the psychological strain of having one’s body go through that but not to be in control of it. Probably especially for Cassie, as she is used to having more control over the process in general than any of the rest of them, so to have it completely out of her hands…

Couples Watch!: Obviously there’s the bit in the beginning when they’re fetching the love note. Maybe aware that Tobias/Rachel jumped the “using the ‘L'” word hurdle in the last book, it is noted here that Cassie and Jake have kissed other times (though usually just after battles) and, while they haven’t told each other, they both know they love each other.

Unfortunately, what should have been big miles stones for these two (but AGAIN, all of that supposed kissing happened off screen, so I’m still calling these two the wet blanket couple of the bunch) are over-shadowed by the much-more compelling and adult-feeling relationship between Aldrea and Dak. Not only do they have a whole book of backstory for the two of them together, but Aldrea’s emotions and memories of Dak just feel deeper and more meaningful.

If Only Visser Three had  Mustache to Twirl: Another book without Visser Three! Really, this is one of the few books that had no main villain. Like we saw in the last book, sometimes other Controllers step in for the villain role, but here we don’t have much other than the generic Hork Bajir and Taxxon Controllers they all fight in the end. And even there, Cassie/Aldrea are never really in that battle. But the Arn is viewed with quite a lot of suspicion from everyone. He says he is the only one left, and they all question his motivations for wanting to start up another guerilla war with the Hork Bajir serving as warriors. What’s in it for him? It’s not like the Arn have a great history about caring for anyone other than themselves, especially not the Hork Bajir. He also has an unfortunate habit of referring to the planet as only his own. Though, to be fair, they were there before the Hork Bajir. So while it’s the Hork Bajirs’ home, too, they can’t really deny the Arn some ownership of it. But, in the end, there doesn’t appear to be anything to all of this suspicion, and while the Arn is still arrogant and a bit off-putting, his claims seemed to be true.

An example of his sliminess, when they are discussing who needs to make the trip to the Hork Bajir planet:

“But she is just a vessel,” Quafijinivon [the Arn] said with a sort of greasy smile. “Why would you humans need to come?”

<Because you think she’s nothing but a vessel, that’s why,>  Tobias said.

Adult Ugly Crying at a Middle Grade Book: The scene where Aldrea first sees what used to be her, Dak, and Seerow’s home, now converted to a Yeerk pool of all things. It’s pretty crushing. Especially because up to this point, some small part of Aldrea has been in denial about her situation. Seeing it really makes it hit home what she’s lost and how far removed she is from everything she knew. It’s really tragic when you think about it. To her, she had just minutes ago been alive and well, transferring her memories. And now it’s all gone. Her husband is dead. Her son went on to be taken by the Yeerks and die in captivity. Her home is a freaking YEERK POOL. The tree in which she and Dak essentially carved “A hearts D” is part of the dam itself!! It’s rough. And then, in the end, she has to choose to return to oblivion, not knowing if she’ll ever wake again.

What  a Terrible Plan, Guys!: The plan with Cassie’s morphing feats was really awesome. The plan to trick Toby was…really not. It all happens in about two pages and it just doesn’t make sense. I feel like Toby knows that Ax threatening her is an empty threat, so it’s hard to believe she’d fall for it. Beyond that, I have to think she’d be more open to an honest conversation with Aldrea and none of it might have been necessary. Beyond that, once she does learn the truth, I’d think the fallout would be massive. That’s a HUGE betrayal by the Animorphs. And it’s only made worse by the general way that Hork Bajir have been mistreated in the past, manipulated by “smarter” species “for their own good.” I have to believe that Toby would see it as such and have a hard time forgiving them all for taking away her agency.

Favorite Quote:

Aldrea notes with some confusion the Animorphs’, and Cassie in particular, sadness over the death of all the helpless Yeerks in their pool. It’s over this concept that Ax and Aldrea begin to understand each other:

<Let  us agree,  then,  that all  civilized  species must share a  hatred of war,> Aximili said.

Funny AND super dated moment. Marco expresses an opinion that does not hold up well!

<He [the Arn] had to come. Star Wars: The Phantom Menace isn’t coming out on DVD there for, like, two years. He buys up a bunch of copies here, takes ’em home, makes a fortune.>

<Good grief, Marco, you live science fiction, why do you want to watch science fiction?>

<Don’t be dissing TPM,> Marco said. <Cool is cool.>

Scorecard: Yeerks 8, Animorphs 14

This is a big win for the Animorphs. Like huge. Having another battlefront break out on the Hork Bajir home world will be a huge help in dividing the Yeerk’s attention and assets. Plus, as sad as they all are about it, they took out a good number of Yeerks in the process.

Rating: I actually really enjoyed this book! All of Cassie’s strengths were utilized in excellent ways, and of course, it was great having the character of Aldrea back, if only briefly. I’m not sure why I forgot this one as much as I did, given how much I liked it this go around. But I was definitely pleasantly surprised.

Note: I’m not going to rate these books since I can’t be objective at all! But I’ll give a one sentence conclusion and you can take from that what you will!