Book Reviews: Everworld 7-12 by Katherine Applegate

[juushika]

• "The gods are inherently fixed, narrow personalities" is uttered in book 12 and could not better sum up my complaints with this series. I don't worship anymore, in retrospect I barely got my teeth into Celtic Reconstructionism, but my primary takeaway was the extreme fluidity of the polytheistic otherworldly and divine. Figures appearing, reappearing, changing between texts; practices and figures overlapping and varying between neighboring nations and communities. Remember in book 9, "I knew the names of only a handful of the Egyptian gods. They were fluid in nature. They melded into one another, without fixed personalities or attributes. They were impossible to learn."? Remember the fuzzy mythic-human nature of the Authrian court in book 3? Because the series frequently forgets all this.
  
  It's insulting and frustrating and poorly researched, and makes me skeptical of pantheons/settings that feel more robust but maybe are as shallowly rendered (and I just don't recognize it), like the Yoruba in book 8. And mostly it's the exact opposite of what I want from depictions of the divine—if it's not strange and superhuman and overwhelming and doesn't make you feel awe and longing then what even is the point?
  
  
• Senna got me through the first half of this series & I regret that she loses so much of her intrigue. (I also regret that I describe it as intrigue approx. 85% of the time.) Her PoV book feels like the death knell—Applegate can pull of a strong antagonist PoV! but Senna, like the series in general, doesn't compare to Animorphs. The Sennites as neo-Nazis who are easy to manipulate but not easy to control is a decision—so apt that it almost feels like satire circa 2018, which is unenjoyable on a dozen levels but not, like, bad.
  
  
• The Everworld TL;DR: Not worth. If, like me, you find the premise unappealing, then the series itself won't change your mind. The characters are fine. The quality is mediocre—frequently readable-but-bad, starts to tip towards outright bad, then ends suddenly but in a way that feels merciful and adequately satisfying.
  
  My opinion wouldn't differ if Animorphs magically un-existed (although in that case I wouldn't've picked up this series). But comparisons are inevitable, and I think the way that actual-violence replaces fridge horror is occasionally interesting or even successful; I like that the characters can be so thorny and unlikable, even if I rarely like them. But Animorphs' reliance on fridge horror and strong sci-fi housing to distract adults from how thoughtful, dark, and mature these kids books can be means a strong bond between world, plot, and characters—it's all about the consequences of its premise and the impact on the cast. But here, the premise is resoundingly mediocre, the plot is unproductively episodic (in the sense of narrative cul-de-sacs; compare again to Animorphs' productive episodes), and it leaves character arcs hanging—they're fine! if I could somehow excise them from the rest of the series , I might even like them! but they don't feel earned in the way that Animorphs earns its creeping, brutal, intense repercussions.
  
  
  Title: Gateway to the Gods (Everworld Book 7)
  Author: Katherine Applegate
  Published: Scholastic, 2000
  Rating: 2.5 of 5
  Page Count: 175
  Total Page Count: 369,795
  Text Number: 1358
  Read Because: reading the series, borrowed from OpenLibrary
  Review: The cast are selected to be the Greek god's heroes in their war against the Hetwan. By this halfway point in the series the characters have developed, but they're just not that interesting or nuanced. A big part of the problem is the pieces not gelling: for example, April's wavering faith would be a lot more compelling if the Greek gods felt the least divine—Athena is the best of them, but they're so shallow in characterization that they undermine the series's premise and April's religious conflict. Similarly, David's aptitude for command is undermined by the reductive simplicity of Everworld society and warcraft. I like the overall trend of Everworld becoming the dominant reality, eclipsing the cast's "real" lives; I also continue to love Senna, who's more nuanced by dint of being an antagonist. But this installment floated by me—bad, as always, in a fundamentally readable way, but still bad.
  
  
  Title: Brave the Betrayal (Everworld Book 8)
  Author: Katherine Applegate
  Published: Scholastic, 2000
  Rating: 3.5 of 5
  Page Count: 200
  Total Page Count: 370,620
  Text Number: 1361
  Read Because: reading the series, borrowed from OpenLibrary
  Review: The African (Yoruba) book, when the cast are delayed by Eshu while making the long trek towards Egypt. I worry that I like this more because I'm less familiar with the mythology and so less frustrated to see it poorly represented—but this book is such a pleasant change. The gods feel significantly more divine, there's some fun (if incomprehensible) imagery in the second half, and Jalil is easily the strongest narrator. He's put on the spot by being Black in an African setting, and it's rendered with pleasant nuance that integrates nicely to both immediate and ongoing tensions and even improves other character arcs, specifically for April and Christopher. I've been feeling a little burned out on this series, but this installment reminds me why I'm reading it.
  
  
  Title: Inside the Illusion (Everworld Book 9)
  Author: Katherine Applegate
  Published: Scholastic, 2000
  Rating: 2.5 of 5
  Page Count: 190
  Total Page Count: 370,810
  Text Number: 1362
  Read Because: reading the series, borrowed from OpenLibrary
  Review: The cast tracks down Senna's mother in Amazon-occupied Egypt—and more memorably this book is from Senna's PoV. Her backstory reveals suits her characterization; she's powerful, deeply unpleasant but in a hammy way (antagonist voices are hard to write!), and conceals a lot of vulnerability. Stubbornly not emotional vulnerability, which hit a trite note re: mommy issues and the unreliability of her characterization. But her physical/magical vulnerability and the imperfect control she has over the Old-Worlders is more nuanced, coming as it does right after Jalil has used her. For once in the entire series, this alliterative title actually fits!
  
  The Old-World elements of the plot lean into the unintentional but persistent ableism/sanism of Applegate; the Everworld elements depict yet another flattened, un-divine mythology. So: a mixed bag on every level. Senna has been my bright light through this middling series; a book from her PoV was a fun surprise and I really wanted to love it. Unfortunately, she's more interesting from without than within—there just isn't enough space to create character depth that can rival her exterior mystique.
  
  
  Title: Understand the Unknown (Everworld Book 10)
  Author: Katherine Applegate
  Published: Scholastic, 2000
  Rating: 1.5 of 5
  Page Count: 180
  Total Page Count: 371,245
  Text Number: 1364
  Read Because: reading the series
  Review: While on their way back to the Greeks, the cast are swept into the underwater kingdom of the tyrannical and unhinged Neptune. This is easily the worst book in the series so far, and not just because I always dislike the aesthetics of the water level. It encapsulates everything wrong with the series: another narrative cul-de-sac that just slows plot progression; the conceptualization of the divine is insulting flat; the Old Worlders are the only competent into characters despite that they're entering complete established civilizations inspired by real-world ancient peoples. The series frequently defaults to "bad, but readable"—this is much more of a slog.
  
  
  Title: Mystify the Magician (Everworld Book 11)
  Author: Katherine Applegate
  Published: Scholastic, 2001
  Rating: 4 of 5
  Page Count: 200
  Total Page Count: 371,815
  Text Number: 1366
  Read Because: fan of the author, hardback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
  Review: The Old Worlders finally face off against Senna. After hating the previous book, I'm pleasantly surprised that I ate this one up. There's no narrative cul-de-sacs here; it's all plot all the time, doing clever things with the parallel-world setup, carrying through on character arcs (I'll never like Christopher, but he's a good PoV for this book) and the ongoing theme of Everworld eclipsing their original/"real" lives. It retains the flaws endemic to the series, primarily the historical reductivism, but also mediocre writing (ex. the key to defeating Senna is obvious to any reader who's the least trope-aware; neo-Nazis as easily-manipulated pawns of the antagonist is painfully on the nose—but effective, don't get me wrong). But, since I don't know if the series will end well, and since it's been relatively underwhelming up to this point, I'm gratified to have at least one strong book near the end to reward my persistence.
  
  
  Title: Entertain the End (Everworld Book 12)
  Author: Katherine Applegate
  Published: Scholastic, 2001
  Rating: 3 of 5
  Page Count: 155
  Total Page Count: 371,970
  Text Number: 1367
  Read Because: reading the series
  Review: The cast struggle to unite the gods against the Sennites and Ka Anor, but with the gateway gone there's a real chance they'll disappear from one of the two worlds. Practically speaking, this is an adequate ramp up to a finale; but we never see that finale, and are given a lingering afterword that explains only where the cast ends up. —And that's no small thing, but the reveal feels unsubstantiated (and for April, PoV for this book, even unwarranted).
  
  But I'm not torn up about a sudden end to the series. Everworld shares some DNA with Animorphs, but is nowhere as successful; it's a rocky read and ultimately not worth recommending. But having come this far, the series provides a fantastic penultimate book that offers much of the closure an ending needs, and a final book then gracefully lets the series die—lingering in the imagination but not forcing the reader through another handful of mediocre books. I call that a win.