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juushikaI'm putting this under my Animorphs tag just for convenience, although future readers may find it relabeled to Applegate in general.
I picked up this series in order to stave off an Animorphs reread, since it really has not been long enough to lose another couple months to that undertaking. And indeed this is a faster read! but, in the first half at least, not nearly so satisfying. Animorphs is so dark that the authors writing an edgier work for an older audience seems like a natural fit, but so much of Animorph's success comes from couching that darkness in an unexpected framework: it's about the slow realization of longterm implications, about the middle grade genre as a screen for characters and reader aging up and for the realities of war. Everworld meanwhile can have child abuse and threats of sexual violence, and when there's also less space for character development it reads mostly as shock value.
There's exceptions—like the absolute delight of Realm of the Reaper, which is everything I wanted from "Animorphs authors, but more explicitly violent"—and Senna is largely a better antagonist than a lot of Animorphs fare because she's a fellow human, frequently elided with the main cast, a peer and someone they need to rely on ... and also an evil mastermind with delightful antagonistic tension with/uncomfortable relationships with/social control over the protagonists.
Anyway, these so far are ... fine? Frequently readable trash with a few interesting elements going on but not holding a candle to Animorphs, and not just because I'm biased against the premise of the series (although there is that, too.)
Title: Search for Senna (Everworld Book 1)
Author: Katherine Applegate
Published: Scholastic, 1999
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 205
Total Page Count: 367,855
Text Number: 1344
Read Because: fan of the author, borrowed from OpenLibrary
Review: Things I remember from reading I think just the first Everworld novel as a kid: grimdark/crapsack portal world (and, specifically, that hanging in chains scene). Things I did not remember: the portal world is home to the gods and their peoples from lost religions. (The aliens, meanwhile, feel totally on-brand.) "Ancient gods are present characters" tends to make for shoddy historical research and unconvincingly inhuman gods, so it's a trope I'm negatively predisposed to despite that this doesn't do anything too awful with it yet.
The grittiness here is almost affected: older protagonists, older audience, a lot of allusions to older subject matter that doesn't feel necessary given that Animorphs is so dark and robust without it. But I like how this strands the characters in the setting, rendering them viscerally exhausted and isolated; and I like Senna flitting through the background, fey and untrustworthy, as the promise of plot to come. I'm not enthusiastic about this but I'm willing to continue, mostly because I loved Animorphs so much as an adult reader that I'm down to try the Applegate I tried but never got into as a kid.
Title: Land of Loss (Everworld Book 2)
Author: Katherine Applegate
Published: Scholastic, 1999
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 185
Total Page Count: 368,235
Text Number: 1347
Read Because: reading the series, borrowed from OpenLibrary
Review: The Aztec book, with the cast in line to become human sacrifices. As disinterested as I am in the grimdark tone and mythological elements, this is a hammy and utterly effective way to sink into them: I have no idea how historically accurate it is, but it makes for vibrant, awesome imagery that focuses on fear and mass slaughter rather than sex and sexual violence—not unproblematically more palatable, but more palatable nonetheless. Christopher is, at least at first blush, easily the worst of the group and I didn't love to spend a book with him. But the rotating PoV makes for diverse internal and external views of the cast, here of David in particular. I hope the characterization evolves as the series goes on, but given its length I worry.
Title: Enter the Enchanted (Everworld Book 3)
Author: Katherine Applegate
Published: Scholastic, 1999
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 170
Total Page Count: 368,405
Text Number: 1348
Read Because: reading the series, borrowed from OpenLibrary
Review: The Arthurian book: reunited with Senna, the cast fights off an attack by Loki on Galahad's court. I like that the Arthurian characters are particularly fuzzy in their origins, somewhere between mythic and mortal, with histories that seem to contradict April's research back in Old World; it suits them and gives this book a misty, mythic tone which is more effective than the romantic dynamic between April and Galahad. But April underwhelmed me: I wanted so much to like her, because she's female but also because of how David and Christopher describe her in contrast to Senna. But her PoV is undifferentiated, especially since she comes right after Christopher and their "I narrate my life according to TV/movies" and "I narrate my life according to acting" gimmicks blur together.
My lower ratings are more indicative of quality—which is still not great—than enjoyment. These are easy to chew through, little popcorn books with bizarro worldbuilding and untaxing, if unremarkable, narration. I can give or take the world, but I love Senna and I appreciate the smaller moments: the horror of Merlin's magics, everyone's persistent exhaustion, the contrasting mundanity—both a frustration and an escape—of the "real" world.
Title: Realm of the Reaper (Everworld Book 4)
Author: Katherine Applegate
Published: Scholastic, 1999
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 175
Total Page Count: 369,265
Text Number: 1355
Read Because: reading the series, borrowed from OpenLibrary
Review: Another Norse book, as the cast lands in Hel's underworld. Discovering the reason for a city peopled by eunuchs and the blind, built around an ominous massive cavern, is an engaging mystery. The horrors of Hel's chambers are exuberantly excessive; while I still don't think the creators of Animorphs need to writing something more explicitly adult to make it memorably dark, given the opportunity to do so this is just the sort of thing I hope they'd indulge in. The book's second half is more plot-focused and therefore less memorable: for better and worse the cast have little agency, which makes the survival elements of their travels that much more demoralizing but it also creates repetition in the overarching plot as they stumble between locales, eking out bits of knowledge but unable to meaningfully act on it. But I like Jalil: the handling of his OCD isn't especially sophisticated, but I appreciate the attempt and it gives him one of the more complex characterizations and a particularly interesting, thematically-engaged relationship with Senna.
Title: Discover the Destroyer (Everworld Book 5)
Author: Katherine Applegate
Published: Scholastic, 2000
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 170
Total Page Count: 369,435
Text Number: 1356
Read Because: reading the series, borrowed from OpenLibrary
Review: The fairy book, as the cast is charged with recovering legendary items stolen by leprechauns. What's really interesting about this is that it's the first book to return to a PoV. David's characterization is rocky—so much of it is defined by his initial terror, as if they weren't all terrified, in the first book & consistently since then; as if his attempts at leadership are undermined by that, rather than by his inexperience and the compromising influence of Senna. Returning to his PoV has all those weaknesses but also strengths. None of characters' voices are particularly differentiated; the traumatic backstory reveal is ... fine, I guess; but the contradiction of whether it's his fear or inexperience or Senna's influence that compromise his leadership are present in this, the first book where he sort of does substantial leading, but not very well, but the others appreciate and trust in it for maybe the first time. It doesn't compare especially well to Jake's arc in Animorphs, but given the length of that series it's not a fair comparison; nonethless, it's satisfying.
Other notes: I continue to love Senna. The plot and setting are fine, here: intentionally not atmospheric in a way that works and which breaks up the tone. And I'm secretly delighted that (as it's been hanging over the series since they refused beer in the very first book) someone finally got really very sick.
Title: Fear the Fantastic (Everworld Book 6)
Author: Katherine Applegate
Published: Scholastic, 2000
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 185
Total Page Count: 369,620
Text Number: 1357
Read Because: reading the series, borrowed from OpenLibrary
Review: The cast joins Dionysus's troupe while traveling through Hetwan territory. The setting is great fun—inventive, strange, and alien, with a Seussian landscape and grotesque biology; again, very much what I'd hope for from the Animorphs authors writing for an older audience. Unfortunately, Dionysus is everything I feared could go wrong with gods as present characters. He's a clumsy god of drunkenness, slight, shallow, with a hollow theatricality and entirely absent any divine madness; boring and frustrating. Christopher is also a frustrating PoV character, because while he's growing more complex and his flaws are realistic, I nonetheless don't prefer to spend an entire book with "average young white guy starts to confront some of his prejudice." So a weaker book on the whole, but bad in the way this series defaults to: readable brain-candy, but flawed.
I picked up this series in order to stave off an Animorphs reread, since it really has not been long enough to lose another couple months to that undertaking. And indeed this is a faster read! but, in the first half at least, not nearly so satisfying. Animorphs is so dark that the authors writing an edgier work for an older audience seems like a natural fit, but so much of Animorph's success comes from couching that darkness in an unexpected framework: it's about the slow realization of longterm implications, about the middle grade genre as a screen for characters and reader aging up and for the realities of war. Everworld meanwhile can have child abuse and threats of sexual violence, and when there's also less space for character development it reads mostly as shock value.
There's exceptions—like the absolute delight of Realm of the Reaper, which is everything I wanted from "Animorphs authors, but more explicitly violent"—and Senna is largely a better antagonist than a lot of Animorphs fare because she's a fellow human, frequently elided with the main cast, a peer and someone they need to rely on ... and also an evil mastermind with delightful antagonistic tension with/uncomfortable relationships with/social control over the protagonists.
Anyway, these so far are ... fine? Frequently readable trash with a few interesting elements going on but not holding a candle to Animorphs, and not just because I'm biased against the premise of the series (although there is that, too.)
Title: Search for Senna (Everworld Book 1)
Author: Katherine Applegate
Published: Scholastic, 1999
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 205
Total Page Count: 367,855
Text Number: 1344
Read Because: fan of the author, borrowed from OpenLibrary
Review: Things I remember from reading I think just the first Everworld novel as a kid: grimdark/crapsack portal world (and, specifically, that hanging in chains scene). Things I did not remember: the portal world is home to the gods and their peoples from lost religions. (The aliens, meanwhile, feel totally on-brand.) "Ancient gods are present characters" tends to make for shoddy historical research and unconvincingly inhuman gods, so it's a trope I'm negatively predisposed to despite that this doesn't do anything too awful with it yet.
The grittiness here is almost affected: older protagonists, older audience, a lot of allusions to older subject matter that doesn't feel necessary given that Animorphs is so dark and robust without it. But I like how this strands the characters in the setting, rendering them viscerally exhausted and isolated; and I like Senna flitting through the background, fey and untrustworthy, as the promise of plot to come. I'm not enthusiastic about this but I'm willing to continue, mostly because I loved Animorphs so much as an adult reader that I'm down to try the Applegate I tried but never got into as a kid.
Title: Land of Loss (Everworld Book 2)
Author: Katherine Applegate
Published: Scholastic, 1999
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 185
Total Page Count: 368,235
Text Number: 1347
Read Because: reading the series, borrowed from OpenLibrary
Review: The Aztec book, with the cast in line to become human sacrifices. As disinterested as I am in the grimdark tone and mythological elements, this is a hammy and utterly effective way to sink into them: I have no idea how historically accurate it is, but it makes for vibrant, awesome imagery that focuses on fear and mass slaughter rather than sex and sexual violence—not unproblematically more palatable, but more palatable nonetheless. Christopher is, at least at first blush, easily the worst of the group and I didn't love to spend a book with him. But the rotating PoV makes for diverse internal and external views of the cast, here of David in particular. I hope the characterization evolves as the series goes on, but given its length I worry.
Title: Enter the Enchanted (Everworld Book 3)
Author: Katherine Applegate
Published: Scholastic, 1999
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 170
Total Page Count: 368,405
Text Number: 1348
Read Because: reading the series, borrowed from OpenLibrary
Review: The Arthurian book: reunited with Senna, the cast fights off an attack by Loki on Galahad's court. I like that the Arthurian characters are particularly fuzzy in their origins, somewhere between mythic and mortal, with histories that seem to contradict April's research back in Old World; it suits them and gives this book a misty, mythic tone which is more effective than the romantic dynamic between April and Galahad. But April underwhelmed me: I wanted so much to like her, because she's female but also because of how David and Christopher describe her in contrast to Senna. But her PoV is undifferentiated, especially since she comes right after Christopher and their "I narrate my life according to TV/movies" and "I narrate my life according to acting" gimmicks blur together.
My lower ratings are more indicative of quality—which is still not great—than enjoyment. These are easy to chew through, little popcorn books with bizarro worldbuilding and untaxing, if unremarkable, narration. I can give or take the world, but I love Senna and I appreciate the smaller moments: the horror of Merlin's magics, everyone's persistent exhaustion, the contrasting mundanity—both a frustration and an escape—of the "real" world.
Title: Realm of the Reaper (Everworld Book 4)
Author: Katherine Applegate
Published: Scholastic, 1999
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 175
Total Page Count: 369,265
Text Number: 1355
Read Because: reading the series, borrowed from OpenLibrary
Review: Another Norse book, as the cast lands in Hel's underworld. Discovering the reason for a city peopled by eunuchs and the blind, built around an ominous massive cavern, is an engaging mystery. The horrors of Hel's chambers are exuberantly excessive; while I still don't think the creators of Animorphs need to writing something more explicitly adult to make it memorably dark, given the opportunity to do so this is just the sort of thing I hope they'd indulge in. The book's second half is more plot-focused and therefore less memorable: for better and worse the cast have little agency, which makes the survival elements of their travels that much more demoralizing but it also creates repetition in the overarching plot as they stumble between locales, eking out bits of knowledge but unable to meaningfully act on it. But I like Jalil: the handling of his OCD isn't especially sophisticated, but I appreciate the attempt and it gives him one of the more complex characterizations and a particularly interesting, thematically-engaged relationship with Senna.
Title: Discover the Destroyer (Everworld Book 5)
Author: Katherine Applegate
Published: Scholastic, 2000
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 170
Total Page Count: 369,435
Text Number: 1356
Read Because: reading the series, borrowed from OpenLibrary
Review: The fairy book, as the cast is charged with recovering legendary items stolen by leprechauns. What's really interesting about this is that it's the first book to return to a PoV. David's characterization is rocky—so much of it is defined by his initial terror, as if they weren't all terrified, in the first book & consistently since then; as if his attempts at leadership are undermined by that, rather than by his inexperience and the compromising influence of Senna. Returning to his PoV has all those weaknesses but also strengths. None of characters' voices are particularly differentiated; the traumatic backstory reveal is ... fine, I guess; but the contradiction of whether it's his fear or inexperience or Senna's influence that compromise his leadership are present in this, the first book where he sort of does substantial leading, but not very well, but the others appreciate and trust in it for maybe the first time. It doesn't compare especially well to Jake's arc in Animorphs, but given the length of that series it's not a fair comparison; nonethless, it's satisfying.
Other notes: I continue to love Senna. The plot and setting are fine, here: intentionally not atmospheric in a way that works and which breaks up the tone. And I'm secretly delighted that (as it's been hanging over the series since they refused beer in the very first book) someone finally got really very sick.
Title: Fear the Fantastic (Everworld Book 6)
Author: Katherine Applegate
Published: Scholastic, 2000
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 185
Total Page Count: 369,620
Text Number: 1357
Read Because: reading the series, borrowed from OpenLibrary
Review: The cast joins Dionysus's troupe while traveling through Hetwan territory. The setting is great fun—inventive, strange, and alien, with a Seussian landscape and grotesque biology; again, very much what I'd hope for from the Animorphs authors writing for an older audience. Unfortunately, Dionysus is everything I feared could go wrong with gods as present characters. He's a clumsy god of drunkenness, slight, shallow, with a hollow theatricality and entirely absent any divine madness; boring and frustrating. Christopher is also a frustrating PoV character, because while he's growing more complex and his flaws are realistic, I nonetheless don't prefer to spend an entire book with "average young white guy starts to confront some of his prejudice." So a weaker book on the whole, but bad in the way this series defaults to: readable brain-candy, but flawed.
