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juushikaTitle: The Forgotten (Animorphs Book 11)
Author: K.A. Applegate
Published: Scholastic, 1997
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 160
Total Page Count: 290,410
Text Number: 951
Read Because: reading the series
Review: I remember this book! Indicating that I just skipped book 10, probably because of spiders. (And, you know what, 12-year-old me? That's fair.)
And it's fantastic. A clever plot (set comfortably within genre convention, but kid-me didn't know better and adult-me doesn't mind); memorable settings (this beautiful/terrifying depiction of the rainforest was formative for me) and scenes (the bear/ant part is so traumatizing!). And, best of all, it has a strong interior view into Jake which is driven less by angst and more by characterization. It's a step up from the bad communication and obviously stupid decisions that motivate much of the tension in earlier books; here, Jake's decisions feel justified while still having devastating consequences, exploring his role as leader in productive ways.
Title: The Reaction (Animorphs Book 12)
Author: K.A. Applegate
Published: Scholastic, 1997
Rating: 1 of 5
Page Count: 150
Total Page Count: 291,680
Text Number: 957
Read Because: reading the series
Review: The allergy concept is bizarre and could make for interesting worldbuilding except that I doubt it'll come up again. The rest of this is just plain bad—the teenage heartthrob and shallow pastiche of middle school girlhood, reversion to bad decision making and poor communication, and humorous excess of the climax are all tiresome. I disliked this as a kid and stand by that now. It's a bad book, and the first that's been a slog to read.
Title: The Andalite Chronicles (Animorphs Chronicles Book 1 / Animorphs Book 12.5 )
Author: K.A. Applegate
Published: Scholastic, 1997
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 405
Total Page Count: 292,245
Text Number: 959
Read Because: reading the series
Review: As a prequel (with a frame narrative), this has a certain degree of predictability, and Animorphs worldbuilding, particularly for the various races, tends to be repetitive and unambitious. Those caveats aside, this is great. The book was originally published in three parts, and while the thirds don't stand alone the rises and falls in the action (and longer page count) make for a lot of book in the familiar readable MG style. The settings are diverse and expansive, particularly the long stay on the Taxxon homeworld, which may be the only successfully-developed alien race in the series; the speculative concepts are creative, and the melded pseudo-universe in the final third is a setpiece that has stuck with me since childhood. The plot resolves too easily, using the exact shortcuts one expects from a time travel story, but the journey there is so violent, so dark, so upsetting—the continual, oppressive danger, the"morphing while being eaten alive" scene (these are kids' books!), Arbron's fate; but also the issues of genocide and PTSD which color the entire series but here are explicitly raised—that I can't fault an easy ending. Something needs to keep these readable.
Title: The Change (Animorphs Book 13)
Author: K.A. Applegate
Published: Scholastic, 1997
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 160
Total Page Count: 291,840
Text Number: 958
Read Because: reading the series
Review: Tobias books are great—he has an accessible but unique angst which I continue to find engaging. There's tension in everything about him: tension between the secretly-desirable escapism of being trapped in morph and mourning for a homelife he never had; his understated but tropey specialness conflicting with both his (hitherto!) limited ability and the problematic nature of those who have marked him as special; even the star-crossed romance with Rachel. It's significantly more complicated and interesting than Hork-Bajir, who turn out not to be hugely interesting—a missed opportunity which is common in the series's worldbuilding.
Title: The Unknown (Animorphs Book 14)
Author: K.A. Applegate
Published: Scholastic, 1998
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 165
Total Page Count: 292,510
Text Number: 961
Read Because: continuing the series
Review: The funny books continue not to work for me, despite that it's about time for one, after two narrative-heavy books. I've always liked theController- horses—it's an unsettling and weirdly evocative and still humorous image. The rest of this, from the familiar structure to the void of plot developments to the ridiculous end sequence, is skippable.
Title: The Escape (Animorphs Book 15)
Author: K.A. Applegate
Published: Scholastic, 1998
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 165
Total Page Count: 292,705
Text Number: 963
Read Because: reading the series
Review: Marco has my least favorite personality, so I'm always ready to dislike his books—and then I don't. His personality is counterbalanced, and drawn into question, by his angst; and the poor communication that this identity crisis fosters still annoys me, but I appreciate the intent. The shark plot here feels like a natural progression from the horses in the previous book, and it—and the underwater setting—is a great image; but it comes too soon after, and so is dulled by redundancy.
A few follow-up notes:
Author: K.A. Applegate
Published: Scholastic, 1997
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 160
Total Page Count: 290,410
Text Number: 951
Read Because: reading the series
Review: I remember this book! Indicating that I just skipped book 10, probably because of spiders. (And, you know what, 12-year-old me? That's fair.)
And it's fantastic. A clever plot (set comfortably within genre convention, but kid-me didn't know better and adult-me doesn't mind); memorable settings (this beautiful/terrifying depiction of the rainforest was formative for me) and scenes (the bear/ant part is so traumatizing!). And, best of all, it has a strong interior view into Jake which is driven less by angst and more by characterization. It's a step up from the bad communication and obviously stupid decisions that motivate much of the tension in earlier books; here, Jake's decisions feel justified while still having devastating consequences, exploring his role as leader in productive ways.
Title: The Reaction (Animorphs Book 12)
Author: K.A. Applegate
Published: Scholastic, 1997
Rating: 1 of 5
Page Count: 150
Total Page Count: 291,680
Text Number: 957
Read Because: reading the series
Review: The allergy concept is bizarre and could make for interesting worldbuilding except that I doubt it'll come up again. The rest of this is just plain bad—the teenage heartthrob and shallow pastiche of middle school girlhood, reversion to bad decision making and poor communication, and humorous excess of the climax are all tiresome. I disliked this as a kid and stand by that now. It's a bad book, and the first that's been a slog to read.
Title: The Andalite Chronicles (Animorphs Chronicles Book 1 / Animorphs Book 12.5 )
Author: K.A. Applegate
Published: Scholastic, 1997
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 405
Total Page Count: 292,245
Text Number: 959
Read Because: reading the series
Review: As a prequel (with a frame narrative), this has a certain degree of predictability, and Animorphs worldbuilding, particularly for the various races, tends to be repetitive and unambitious. Those caveats aside, this is great. The book was originally published in three parts, and while the thirds don't stand alone the rises and falls in the action (and longer page count) make for a lot of book in the familiar readable MG style. The settings are diverse and expansive, particularly the long stay on the Taxxon homeworld, which may be the only successfully-developed alien race in the series; the speculative concepts are creative, and the melded pseudo-universe in the final third is a setpiece that has stuck with me since childhood. The plot resolves too easily, using the exact shortcuts one expects from a time travel story, but the journey there is so violent, so dark, so upsetting—the continual, oppressive danger, the
Title: The Change (Animorphs Book 13)
Author: K.A. Applegate
Published: Scholastic, 1997
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 160
Total Page Count: 291,840
Text Number: 958
Read Because: reading the series
Review: Tobias books are great—he has an accessible but unique angst which I continue to find engaging. There's tension in everything about him: tension between the secretly-desirable escapism of being trapped in morph and mourning for a homelife he never had; his understated but tropey specialness conflicting with both his (hitherto!) limited ability and the problematic nature of those who have marked him as special; even the star-crossed romance with Rachel. It's significantly more complicated and interesting than Hork-Bajir, who turn out not to be hugely interesting—a missed opportunity which is common in the series's worldbuilding.
Title: The Unknown (Animorphs Book 14)
Author: K.A. Applegate
Published: Scholastic, 1998
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 165
Total Page Count: 292,510
Text Number: 961
Read Because: continuing the series
Review: The funny books continue not to work for me, despite that it's about time for one, after two narrative-heavy books. I've always liked the
Title: The Escape (Animorphs Book 15)
Author: K.A. Applegate
Published: Scholastic, 1998
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 165
Total Page Count: 292,705
Text Number: 963
Read Because: reading the series
Review: Marco has my least favorite personality, so I'm always ready to dislike his books—and then I don't. His personality is counterbalanced, and drawn into question, by his angst; and the poor communication that this identity crisis fosters still annoys me, but I appreciate the intent. The shark plot here feels like a natural progression from the horses in the previous book, and it—and the underwater setting—is a great image; but it comes too soon after, and so is dulled by redundancy.
A few follow-up notes:
- I had sincerely wondered if I stopped reading the series at book 10, which seemed unlikely, as there's scenes I remember that haven't/hadn't come up in the books yet; but no, everything since then is still familiar! I'm curious to see how far my remembering extends. I can't recall the books cold; it's not until I'm given the context of each book that I remember what happens next.
- In further Yeerk worldbuilding: Taxxon hunger is so strong that Taxxon-Controllers are still cannibalistic; as with Chapman's limited rebellion, some things not just challenge a Yeerk's control but must be accommodated in order for a Yeerk to maintain control. (What manages to challenge/requires accommodation has way more to do with "convenient/interesting for plot" than strength of will or any character judgement that might imply.)
Embodiment is central to Yeerk social interaction and also gender identity and, by implication, personality. (I mean, not at all by implication insofar as the text is concerned, because that would mean interrogating the link between symbiont/host and body/gender/social role, none of which the text intends to do; its unquestioned default is a [literal] universal heteronormative gender binary. But that's a) bad and b) boring, so let's disregard it.)
TL;DR: What is a Taxxon-body experience like for a Yeerk? Is there a constant conflict re: cannibalism, where the Yeerk is disgusted by Taxxon urges and/or ashamed by their lack of control over the host? Which Yeerks get Taxxon bodies and what are the social repercussions—is it the shitty host race? do they shun each other for a loss of control that clearly no one can master? Are there Taxxon-Controllers that don't cannibalize because they're super strong-willed?
Hork-Bajir-Controllers speak pidgin—is this because of the Hork-Bajir's limited intelligence? Is a horse-Controller limited in intelligence? It was an issue with the shark proto-Controllers. This hasn't been mentioned re: Gedd-Controllers. Because, obvs., the ethical solution to the Yeerk are consenting and/or non-sapient host bodies (and also, like, not doing the colonialism and genocide thing anymore), but perhaps there's actual hurdles to that.
Do I just want to use the Yeerk to expand my thoughts/feels about the Trill? Like, probably, yeah, that's fair. - This is about when I started to wonder if my reading list had the correct chronology for the spin-offs, which it did not, so I went through by hand to double-check everything; as such, I've already read The First Journey (because it takes place after book 11), the first Choose Your Own Adventure and actually book 28.5, but I'll include that review when I get to the book 26-30 block. I wasn't sure on the relative publishing dates of The Andalite Chronicles and book 13, so read them in reverse order. It works either way, but, yeah, some Tobias-revelations make more sense with The Andalite Chronicles as context.
- That original reading list also marked some books as bad/skippable, and included both The Change (marked as mildly not-great) and The Andalite Chronicles (marked as awful & skippable) which. is wrong. is objectively and horribly wrong. But okay.
