The Return (Animorphs, No. 48) by Applegate, Katherine A. (2000) Mass Market Paperback

Animorphs #48

by K.A. Applegate

The Animorphs trapped David in rat morph . . . but now he's back for revenge!

Genres: Science Fiction, Young Adult, Fiction, Fantasy, Childrens, Aliens, Middle Grade

Mass Market Paperback

First published October 1, 2000

About the author

also published under the name Katherine Applegate

Reviews

[Thibault Busschots · Rating 3 out of 5]

David’s back and he wants revenge.


Rachel is the point of view character and we once again get more than a glimpse at how her character deals with the effects of the war. Her entire character arc revolves around the war affecting her psychologically and how she’s come to enjoy the violence. And here it’s once again shown how she’s willing to be the bad guy for the greater good. It’s the sacrifice she’s willing to make to win the war.


The David trilogy in the middle of the series was pretty good. But for me, it had a good and very conclusive ending. So it doesn’t feel necessary to revisit this character. Which, once again, makes this feel like just another filler story that keeps us away from the ending we’ve been building up to for quite a while now. But this is actually a pretty good story. The further exploration of Rachel’s character does make it worth the read, even though it doesn’t really add anything new to her character per se.

[Bon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was a little too real! They're getting so scary as I get to the end 😭

[JD Waggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Holy mindfuckery, Batman. How does this series not get SO MUCH MORE PRESS than it does?

It's such an incredible thing to me how much more I appreciate Rachel reading this as an adult than I did when I was a kid; I never liked her as a kid, but my heart breaks for her from my grown-up state. I was all set to dislike this at the beginning because it had the choppy, halting sentence style that I detest and it felt like it was going to be a rehashing of the "oh dark Rachel" from The Separation. BUT NO. We are too far along for that now; Applegate & Co. have found their rhythm of tearing my heart out and they will not leave it willingly.

The writing of this is so damn good in terms of making sure you as the reader are every bit as disoriented as Rachel is. Is this storyline real? Maybe. Maybe not. You don't know, and neither does she (and as someone who has had dreams nested within dreams, I can attest to how absolutely lost you feel when you "truly" wake up). Jake is the one we've seen the most with nightmares and Rachel mentions this, which makes me wonder if these two talk about such things with each other. The spaces between the characters are one of the many, many ways that this series is tearing its characters apart; each is isolating him- or herself, brooding over their own pains because they no longer have words or energy to share them. Rachel here talks a lot about how the others see her, but never mentions any kind of conversation about that--has she talked with Cassie about how Cassie feels? Or with Tobias about his concerns for her? Probably not.

So, pulling into herself, Rachel is primed and ready to get torn apart by the reappearance of David. I'm not hugely fond of bringing him back in because his storyline always felt a little forced to me, but it is most certainly the gaunt specter hanging always behind Ax and Rachel. Honestly, one of the biggest reasons for giving this 4 instead of 5 stars was that Ax isn't a part of this at all, even though I know he couldn't be because this has to be about Rachel and she isn't terribly connected to him beyond being in the Animorphs.

I'll put this chunk under a spoiler tag because I want to be able to break it down. Adding in Crayak as the motivation seems like it would be an almost literal deus ex machina, but Applegate & Co. pull it off. The whole theme of the continual unreality is fantastically continued with not only Crayak's appearance but also the death match with Visser One and the incredible size and power changes Crayak gives Rachel. He allows her to be everything she can be, and that everything is hella frightening. I was totally wrapped into the death match because it finally made an Animorph into the Visser, pulling out weird and otherworldly morphs suited to everything the way the Visser can; the description of their one-upping each other was brilliantly done. Rachel's realization that she was becoming the Visser herself in this new experience of power is just crazy-amazingly done because yes. Crayak plays on Jake's fear and Rachel's anger, an anger that is incredibly justified by someone who is fighting for the life of everyone she loves. But the ends cannot justify the means, which is a thread that winds through this entire series as everyone has to come to their own bright, clear line.

Although it's odd to be separating off one character this close to the end of the series, it works really well--especially if you know Rachel's ultimate fate. Much of this book is spent with her pushing on her own ideas about what the Animorphs think of her, down to bolded quotes from the other members in other books commenting on the darkness in her. Her ultimate realization that she needs the others to be the good guys so she can be bad reminded me a little of the quote from Sherlock that he may be on the side of the angels but should never be confused with being one of them--and to invoke that kind of connection is a hell of a thing in this book because you start looking at Rachel and really knowing that she can't come out of this okay.

The ending, which annoyed the hell out of me as a kid, was SO FREAKING BRILLIANT. It was heartbreaking and awful and just beautifully done; it was the perfect time to throw reality back in the reader's face that she's a freaking kid. All of this is falling on her and it's hard for an adult to handle, but she literally is holding life and death in her hands and she doesn't even have a driver's license. This goes way beyond youth empowerment to a place that both kid and adult readers can say hang on, this isn't okay, she's crying in an alley with a rat who's not only too cowardly to live but too cowardly to die, thus making it her problem in the ultimate wounding. David wanted so badly to hurt her, and inadvertantly he did just that in the most intense way he could: he made her Death, in which any choice would tear her apart. So did she kill David? I don't know, but I think leaving it to the reader was such a great choice because it makes us examine how we as the watchers are reacting to these characters. Do we want her to have killed him? Why? Are we, like Cassie, standing piously on the sidelines hoping that someone else will do what needs to be done? Or are we dooming David to stay a rat despite his desperate pleas not to continue in this prison? Do we accept that there is no right choice here?

I knocked the star for a few extraneous bits, like what on earth was going on with the two henchmen and how tacked-on they felt (even though I knew why they needed to be part of the story. I also wished there had been a bit more awareness of Cassie in some sense as well as the reality of the glass cage--she had space enough to be human when they started, but later it seemed to be a problem, which I didn't get. But otherwise this is an incredibly powerful and confusing and disorienting and brilliant book, and oh Rachel, honey, it just sucks to be you.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ghostwriter: Kimberly Morris, who also wrote the fantastic #38 The Arrival. I have to say, I'm really enjoying casting a spotlight on the ghostwriters this time around, getting a sense of their own strengths and weaknesses and styles -- I had no idea they were ghostwritten when I was a kid, so this is granting my reread an extra layer of analysis/dissection. It's also interesting seeing the list of writers coalescing towards the end (Morris and Harkrader are going to be trading back-and-forth through the end of the series); almost as if people realised who their strongest/best ghostwriters were and eventually settled on them, after a trial period with lots of others.

Also, first off, can I just talk about the Goodreads blurb: The Animorphs trapped David in rat morph . . . but now he's back for revenge!

This is an absolutely AWFUL blurb!! It reminds me of pulpy serials from the 1950s, ugh. :| But anyway. It's inevitable that David would return. Several of the books in the 40s are picking up on old plotlines and revisiting them: so far, there's been the Helmacrons, Taylor, Visser One, David, and the book after this includes a character that we haven't seen in a long, long time. It's the penultimate phase: tying up old storylines, giving them all closure.

This book pairs well with #41 The Familiar, as it's also a nightmarish, dream-like examination of Rachel's worst fears and weaknesses -- this time, served up on a platter by Crayak, sort of like how he targeted Jake in Megamorphs #4. He and the Drode are picking away at the Animorphs' weaknesses, their faultlines. Rachel, of the dark heart.

You could say that this book is technically inconsequential, because only happens to Rachel and Cassie. But it's much more effective as a separation from the team than Cassie's Outback Adventures, because it's digging deep into Rachel's psyche, and picking up on echoes from previous books, Jake's words coming back to haunt her and tying this perfectly into her arc. In fact, I really wanted to chart her character development in this regard, so I made this compilation of quotes. She's on the TVtropes page for purposeful Flanderization:

In Animorphs, this happened to Rachel, though it was intentional. [...] All the characters were Flanderized, actually, to a lesser extent. [...] The Flanderization was, really, the point. The war took whatever aspect of their personalities was most useful to the fight (bloodlust, strategizing, manipulating people, etc.) and forced them to exaggerate it until it ate the rest of their lives.

And as you can see from my quote compilation, this has been underway for a long, long time. The cracks have been showing since the very beginning, but this book is one of those moments where you stop and realise just how far it's come; her violent psychopathy might seem out of the blue until you look back at all the steps we've taken along the way.

Rachel is a lot of people's favourite Animorph -- not mine personally, but I do love her to bits and pieces. This book gave me lots of cousins feelings. Also, since I just saw Mockingjay Part 2 a couple days ago -- without spoilers, I'll just say that I think Animorphs is an even better series about the horrors of war.

I also like Rachel's continued irritation, almost, that Cassie was the cruel mastermind behind Davis'e entrapment, and yet he keeps attributing it to Rachel. She doesn't correct him, though -- she's possibly protecting Cassie's reputation, even now?

I'm not even sure what to say about this book, because so much of it would be spoilery, but I highlighted like a million quotes from it. It also has some deliciously creepy Inception-esque dream sequences, haunted by the chittering of rats and not knowing what's real and what's not. The ending is -- as I've been saying about like every book -- heartwrenching. Rachel comes to a full realisation about herself, and who she is, and her role & function within this team. She's come close to it before, but now the elephant's out in the open.

And as for the ending and the last couple pages: I'm certain that she killed him. They've come too far, and he represents too much of a threat, and he was outright begging for it. It broke her to do it, like she had to undergo his entrapment mostly-alone, but she killed David. In the end, too, I feel sorry for him. The last scene, man.

Blargh. Feelings. I'm only docking a star because Super-Rachel was a bit weird and overpowered, and the Visser One fight scene raises so many questions with me.


Favourite quotes below the cut, of which there are MANY:

"On your right is the door to the Oval Office. The office of the President of the United States, perhaps the most powerful person in the world."

Marco threw me a look. One of those looks that said, "If they only knew."

If they only knew there's someone else right here on Earth possibly far more powerful than any president or king or prime minister.

Jake and Marco think it's better people don't know the truth about that someone else.

Me?

Lately I wonder.

***

Fact: We aren't like other kids.

We were once. But never again.

After a certain point, you just can't go back to where you started. Even if you want to. Which I have to admit -- I don't.

***

Oxygen was returning to my body. And along with it, all the hate I felt for the Yeerks. For what they had done to Tobias. For what they had done to all of us.

I was glad the covert war was over. Glad not to have to pretend anymore.

"Tobias is down," I said. "I saw him get hit. The Yeerks want war, they'll get it."

"Everybody slow down," Jake cautioned. But he looked at me when he said it.

Jake never loses a chance to imply that I'm some kind of shoot-first-ask-questions-later loose cannon. I gulped some air, tried to slow my pulse. Jake is our leader. We do what he says.

At least we have so far. But it gets harder and harder for me. Maybe for all of us.

***

"Quit fooling around, kid. We're trying to save your life."

I'd risked my life more times than I could count. Fought every kind of monster the galaxy could muster. And he had the nerve to tell me to stop--fooling around!

Tobias was probably lying dead on the White House lawn. And this clown wanted me to stop fooling around.

The guy didn't know beans about what was happening on his own watch.

That's when it happened.

Something snapped. Some spring inside me just went BOOINNGGGG!

Maybe when he was lying on the ground in ten pieces he would figure out I hadn't been fooling around.

I wanted blood. I could smell it. I could taste it.

Was it the grizzly in me that wanted to kill?

Or was it the me in me?

I didn't know, and I didn't want to know.

I just wanted to take his face off.

***

I looked at those two massive Hork-Bajir and didn't see victims of the Yeerk invasion. I saw murderers.

I saw killers.

And I saw blood.

I dropped down on all fours and loped toward them.

Dracon fire singed me but I didn't even feel it.

When I jumped, I brought both of them down with one tackle. Blades scraped me. Tore through my fur, into my flesh. But I paid no attention. Nothing could hurt worse than the main in my head -- and my heart.

Then, suddenly, something grabbed me, pulled me away.

A gorilla. Full grown. Marco, in his favorite battle morph. I snarled, turned on the hulking primate. But he shoved me off-balance.

***

<If you don't demorph, you'll die,> he said. <Face it, Rachel. You've lost. You lost this fight before it started.>

It was his calmness that sent me further into a blinding, screaming, homicidal rage.

He was so arrogant! So sure of his own superiority!

I thrashed! I screamed! I roared!

But he was right. I was losing.

<Morph, Rachel!> Cassie. <Morph, now!>

But I didn't. And I wouldn't.

Because at that point, I knew I'd rather die than lose.

<Come on, Rachel!> Marco's voice broke. <Morph. Don't be stupid.>

A drop of blood from a torn ear trickled down my cheek. My neck. It tickled and caused me to jerk my eyes open and sit up with a scream that probably woke up everybody in the house.

Sweat, not blood, was trickling down my face.

I wasn't on the lawn of the White House.

Not in Washington, D.C., our nation's capitol.

No. I was in my bed. At home.

And I'd been having a nightmare.

Again.

***

Reality check: Marco is officially dead. He lives with his parents -- also officially dead -- and the free Hork-Bajir. Sometimes with Ax. He doesn't go to school anymore. He wouldn't be on a class trip.

I should have known the dream was a dream.

"There's really nothing in particular I want to talk about," I lied.

Ax looked at me and held his gaze for longer than necessary. He knew I was lying.

Then he turned to peer at the computer screen over Marco's shoulder.

***

Cassie's the only one of us who might really be called "sensitive." Marco, like Ax, is perceptive. But that's not the same thing as being sensitive.

***

<It would seem that the human race is about to learn the truth,> Ax said thoughtfully. <If the Yeerks no longer feel their presence is a secret, this could be the moment they decide to declare open war.>

"Woo-hoo!" I pumped my fist.

Marco shook his head in disgust. "Could you at least try to act like you're not thrilled at the prospect?"

Sometimes it's really hard not to like Marco.

This wasn't one of those times.

"Look," I said, "covert war stinks. It's a nasty, underground kind of thing that screws up your head. Look at what it's done to us. Look at the moral compromises we've had to make. You guys act like I'm some kind of psycho. But all I want is a fair fight. And you can't have a fair fight with an enemy that won't declare war!"

I was semi-breathless when I finished with righteous indignation. But also with a kind of shame. Ax and Marco were giving me that big-eyed look. The kind of look that clearly said they didn't believe what I was saying and were pretty sure I didn't believe it, either.

***

I felt my face turn hot and red. I knew what the nightmares were about. Why had I been trying to fool myself and pretend that I didn't? I wasn't fooling anybody else.

My deep, dark secret was like an elephant in the living room. A big purple one. With polka dots.

Nobody talked about it.

But everybody knew it was there.

The secret was that whatever we'd been doing, I did like it.

And the good guys aren't supposed to like it.

***

<You okay?" Tobias asked, flying near but not close enough to arouse suspicion if we were being observed from the ground. A bald eagle and a red-tailed hawk are not usually flying buddies.

<No,> I said in my surliest tone.

<Watn to talk about it?>

There was a long pause.

<Can you talk about it?>

***

School was the same old, same old.

Teachers chatted with one another in the halls. Girls giggled. Guys punched one another in the arm.

Stupid stuff, but familiar.

Not to me.

Not anymore.

I felt like I was watching everyone from behind a Plexiglass window. I just wasn't there. I couldn't relate, not to the teachers, the boys, the girls. I couldn't even pretend to relate.

I didn't know how much longer I could keep up the pretense that I was just another kid. Just another kid with nothing more important to worry about than zits and pop quizzes.

I felt like I was going to explode.

***

The red glow was gone. I could clearly see the teacher and the words she had written on the board.

My head began to swim. What was going on?

I was close enough to the wall to lean my head against it. The plaster felt cool and smooth against my cheek.

But inside the wall, I heard scratching and scrabbling. The sound of little claws.

Rats.

My hands began to shake. I balled them into fists to stop the trembling.

***

I got to the door of the classroom. Heard the teacher launch back into her lecture about "The Tell-Tale Heart."

A story about how guilt drives a murderer insane. Maybe more insane than he already is. It's the beating of the victim's heart that does it. The beating of the victim's dead heart, buried under the floorboards. Haunting the murderer.

Thumping in his ears and his alone.

The sound pursues him.

Until he breaks. Until he confesses to his crime.

***

[NOTE FROM JULIE: The thing about rats not really being able to swim is wrong. Rats can swim for three days without tiring. These are the terrifying things you learn when you live in New York and you're researching how can rats climb up through your toilet pipes!!!!]

***

"I did what I had to do," I said, trying to hide my distress beneath a tone of conviction. "When you were threatening us. When we thought you'd killed Tobias. Jake sent me after you because he knew I would do what was necessary."

You, Rachel, you love it. It's what makes you so brave. It's what makes you so dangerous. I don't know what will happen to you if it all ends someday.

Jake.

Neither one of us had exactly distinguished ourselves over the David episode. Not me. Not Jake.

***

I burned with fury.

Had I really felt sorry for this piece of crap?

David was right. We should never have stranded him on the island. We should have killed him when we had the chance. I'd known what he was. Way more than just a troubled kid.

But killing David had seemed over the top. Barbaric.

The reality was that I'd been afraid. Afraid to kill.

We all had.


I saw now that I, at least, had just been weak.

***

And I realized it wasn't David's voice I'd been hearing.

Not David's voice that had manipulated me. That had cast its magic over me.

It was another voice entirely.

[...] And then there was a low humming sound. Very faint, but audible.

And again, the dark, cavernous space was lit with an eerie red glow. Only now, the light source was visible.

The light source was a large red eye.

It hovered over the room from just under the vaulted ceiling. Peered down like a gigantic red spotlight.

***

My brain kicked into overdrive.

<Wait!>

David cringed. <No,> he protested softly.

I stood up on my hind legs. <Reality check.>

<Everything I told you is true,> David said quickly. <I escaped from the island. I have a plan to rule the world. I...>

<Rats are not sentient creatures,> I interrupted. <They don't take orders. They don't organize. They can't be rallied like troops. And they don't attack people on command.>

David chittered and lay on his belly.

<You might be a rat with human intelligence, but that doesn't make you Dr. Dolittle. You can talk to me and you can talk to your punks. But you can't "talk" to other rats.>

<You don't know what you're saying! You don't know anything!> David cried. <Shut up! Shut up!>

<Which means that what happened outside the barn couldn't have happened,> I went on, my brain whirring. <And what you said happened on the island -- you building a loyal following -- couldn' t have happened. Which means that this, right now, can't be happening, either!>

I looked over at Cassie.

She was smiling. And then Cassie wasn't Cassie. She became a creature we had encountered before.

The Drode!

An intergalactic trickster.

***

"Look, you're all just a nightmare. A seriously foul dream."

"Excellent, Rachel. You are a skeptic. A good quality in a strategist. And a leader. David? You've had your fun but Rachel got the best of you. I told you that if she guessed there was more here than what meets the eye, you had to tell her the truth. Tell her.>

<I am here,> David admitted grudgingly. <But everything was Crayak's doing. I don't have a rat army. Rats don't understand much of anything. You can't talk to rats.>

David's rodent body fairly emanated rising panic. Hysteria. So did his voice. <Do you have any idea just how bad it was for me on that rock, Rachel? Not another sentient creature. And having to defend myself from the others? From other rats? From birds of prey? From the rain and the cold and-->

"I didn't tell you to whine!" Crayak thundered angrily.

<Okay! Okay!> David turned to me. <Crayak got me off the island.>

<In exchange for what?> I asked.

<In exchange for a companion. I would have chosen Cassie. She was nice to me when no one else was. But that's why I couldn't choose her after all. I wouldn't condemn her to this living hell.>

***

"I'm one of the good guys," I said.

Then I tried to figure out exactly what it was that made me a good guy.

I had no answer.

Maybe I'd never had one.

Crayak chuckled again.

"Good guys. Bad guys. It seems so simple, and yet it is anything but."

***

"Yes," Crayak said. "Execute him. Free the earth from tyranny. And then..."

And then... what?

Sit around and watch TV?

An epiphany. A revelation. The lightbulb switching on in my head.

Face it, Rachel. The power is like a drug. And you are like an addict.

Would I ever get enough? How long before I turned into a morally decrepit monster like Visser One? And making a deal with Crayak would only accelerate the journey to that inevitable end.

Suddenly, I had a vision of myself as I would really appear to the world. To my family. Friends. To the other Animorphs. To the Chee. The free Hork-Bajir.

To every decent person on this planet.

Super-Rachel was not beautiful and kind and benevolent. She would not be honored and respected.

She was hideous and violent and brutal.

She would be feared by everyone.

Despised and hated.

A tyrant to be plotted against, just like Visser One.

Rachel of the darkness deep down inside.

"No."

***

"<You could give Jake the power to end the war. If you wanted to. But you don't, because Jake really is a strong leader, and you know it. You know you can't make him follow your rules. You know you can't control him. Well, here's some news, Crayak. You can't control me, either.

[NOTE FROM JULIE: Interesting, though, that Jake actually did cave in Megamorphs #4, and Rachel won't ever know it.]

***

<It's a trap,> David squeaked. <A trap, you idiots! Don't fall for ii.>

Tattoo and Grease eyed David with contempt.

Sometimes it pays to have a dark heart. It helps you to understand other dark hearts.

Cont'd in comments!

[Kara Babcock · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decidedly mixed feelings about this one! The Return asks some important questions about Rachel and her attitude towards fighting this war against the Yeerks. It also features the much-anticipated … uh, return … of David, one-time Animorph. Yet, like many Animorphs books, I find that the actual story/plot doesn’t bear up under the weight of the themes the series is trying to explore.

This is a deep cut, even for this series, but I’m really pleased that we get to see David again. His fate back in #22: The Solution was (is?) one of the series’ darkest moments (though the end of The Return might qualify as even darker, depending on what you think happened). The whole “David trilogy” is such a standout part of this series in so many ways that this reprise is very welcome so close to the end of the series. Similarly, the way that Applegate and her ghostwriter use this to explore Rachel’s dented moral compass comes at an excellent time.

Let’s get some of my complaints out of the way: the whole setup, as far as David trapping Rachel with hired goons but also somehow working for Crayak, is bonkers and just doesn’t work for me. For one thing … if Crayak really wanted to test Rachel, he could have found a better way to do it (even with David involved). Moreover, the book takes way too much time to get into the good stuff. We get to see multiple chapters of dream sequence false starts before David even shows up. Rachel’s wizard’s duel against Visser One is unimpressive, because it’s pretty obvious the stakes aren’t really that high (Rachel is not going to die, and the war with the Yeerks is not going to end like this). As a result, so much of the plot of this book feels like bizarre filler.

The only saving grace of The Return is just how brutally it deals with Rachel’s character. This book reminds me a little of #33: The Illusion, just in the way that it strips away so much of the adolescent pretense around Rachel as The Illusion did for Tobias. Rachel is no longer the girl she was back at the beginning of this series. She is a fighter now, a warrior, and she does have this kind of bloodlust. She enjoys the power that she has. None of the other Animorphs, not even the warrior-trained Ax, really shows as much of an enjoyment of combat as Rachel does. This is something that surprises even her.

And I do love the ending. I love that we don’t get the certainty of knowing whether or not Rachel decides to kill David. I guess this is one of those litmus “glass half empty or full” tests—if Rachel spares David, it shows that her character has learned to be more compassionate since The Solution; if she kills him, it shows that she has learned to be more ruthless. Then again, people’s definitions of compassion might vary. David definitely seems to think Rachel would be showing more compassion by killing him rather than forcing him to live his life as a rat.

For what it’s worth, I think she does kill David. I’d like to think she lets him go, that she can’t bring herself to do it. But let’s be real. This is a person who has fought against Taxxons and Hork-Bajir. Rachel mortally wounds Controllers all the time. While there is a gulf between killing in the heat of battle or killing in so-called “cold blood”, I don’t think that gulf is too wide for Rachel to cross. Just because she says no to becoming Crayak’s pet killing machine doesn’t mean she is suddenly a pacifist like Cassie. Besides, if she spared David, she would feel obligated to go back to the others and say, “Btw, you guys, David is back.” By killing him, she can omit this entire episode if she wants. She takes the pressure off Jake et al to make that decision—and that is exactly the kind of move that Rachel would make at this point.

David is dead, and so is Rachel’s childhood.

Next time, the Animorphs’ guise of Andalite bandits starts to wear thin. What will happen when the Yeerks realize that their number one enemy has just been a band of meddling kids and their big blue alien?

My reviews of Animorphs:
← The Ellimist Chronicles | #49: The Diversion →

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Man, difficult to rate this one, I'm going with 3.5. Even though Rachel's morality has been explored through the series, it was nice to have a book devoted to it. Rachel is also one of my favorite characters. And that ending killed me. But overall I don't think the book was super well-written.

Big questions in this one (and the reason for a higher rating): What does it mean to be a "good guy"? How do you know a choice is right or wrong, and just what is right or wrong anyway? Is it acceptable to be the dark to someone else's light, and how do you deal with the disgust from yourself and others if you choose that path?

That last question was the most interesting to me, and I had skimmed over it just reading the series, but it's a good one. The other Animorphs may dislike the way Rachel is, but they need her to be the sacrifice so that they can keep living with themselves as they aren't doing the dirty deeds. Rachel needs the Animorphs because without them she would have no sense of direction and her inner darkness consume her. She needs to feel justified in letting that darkness out. I think it would come out no matter what, but the Animorphs can channel it and more or less subdue it. Interesting to think about.

[Kirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was so close to 5 stars for me. The first 1/3 or so was great. Rachel is dealing with what seems to be PTSD, and we’re starting to see her reach a point of no return . . . then it all turns out to be an illusion and she becomes SUPER RACHEL 🙄

The super Rachel bit kind of took the piss out of this book for me. Other than that. It was well done. David is a character you can both hate and pity, straight up, and they keep you fluctuating between those two modes right to the last moment.

Did Rachel kill David? I don’t know. Did I want her to? I don’t know, and that’s why the ending works so well. It puts the reader at the heart of Rachel’s struggle.

I know what is coming in book 54, most of it anyway. And what I know makes me kind of pissed that Rachel is being cast as hitting a point of no return in this book. There seems to be a subtle message here that those who transform in war, or who are damaged in war, are irredeemable. Like once the war is over there is no place for people like Rachel. I think that’s untrue. Even Gundam Wing gave born soldiers a spectrum of options post-purpose.

[Orangummy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5! really liked it. Usually the short sentence style would drive me insane but it added to the dreamlike quality of this book. What was real and what wasn't. Rachel, oh Rachel.

[Grapie Deltaco · Rating 4 out of 5]

We begin the story with Rachel dreaming of willingly choosing death over submission to even the members of her own team and it’s a terrible sight to see immediately after the unknown death we just read about.

“My deep, dark secret was like an elephant in the living room. A big purple one. With polka dots. Nobody talked about it. But everybody knew it was there. The secret was that whatever we'd been doing, I did like it.

And the good guys aren't supposed to like it.”

Nightmares within nightmares and the absolute worst cameos imaginable.

I don’t even know how to process this.

CW: war, violence, death, grief, slavery, murder, torture, genocide, suicidal ideation

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though Rachel's struggle to choose between right and wrong (and determine what constitutes either) has been well-explored at this point in the series, I still enjoyed this delve into a more psychological and virtual battleground of her struggle. Over and over, she insists, "I'm one of the good guys," to which she is challenged, "Then do the right thing" (148). But what does it really mean to do the right thing, when to choose to do "right" or "wrong" will leave you seared forever? The imagery found in the closing lines of the book, of an ordinary girl sitting and crying alone yet feeling the weight of the world, has stuck with me over the years: "I looked around. Stupidly. There was no one to tell me what to do. No Crayak. No Ellimist. No Cassie. No Jake. I was alone with David. My enemy was completely at my mercy. I caught a glimpse of myself in a broken shard of mirror. And saw what anyone looking down the alleyway from the sidewalk would have seen. A young girl sitting knees-up in the sun, staring at a white rat. It would be hard to believe the entire fate of the planet depended on that girl. A girl who wanted to do the right thing. But who had no idea at all what that was..." (148). Though Rachel emerges the "winner" from the dark and twisted underground fantasy/nightmare back into sun-lit reality, the right choice to make is by no means any more illumined up above.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

   Rachel is cracking. There is no doubt about it now. Her reality and her dreams and her nightmares are all confused, and she’s not quite sure which one is which all the time. She has nightmares within dreams within reality, and to top it off, she now has David – the former 6th Animorph (well, technically 7th if you include Ax in the count…), long since trapped as a rat – back, and seeking revenge against her. Only he’s not alone – he has an army of rats at his disposal, and the Crayak “joining” him to whittle down Rachel’s resolve, her determination to cling to morality in these warped times.

   What I enjoyed about this book was the mind games David and Crayak played with Rachel, playing on her continued attempts at rejecting the darkness inside of her, despite how it is very obvious she is fighting a losing battle with herself. (Let’s refer back to Back to Before (Megamorphs #4) and how as a grizzly after the battle she is raging, “roaring with the frustration of a mad beast looking for fresh victims and finding none” as just a brief example.) This book even picks up threads from the ham-fisted approach in The Weakness (Animorphs #37) introducing how Rachel wants to claim leadership, and takes those threads more subtlety and with more precision and, in my opinion, resolves them. (Never mind that I still don’t think her wanting leadership should ever have been a thing, but it would have been worse if the series did not address it again.)

   And while this entire book might seem a rehash, in a way, of Rachel’s continuing struggle with the darkness inside of herself, which seemed to be resolved in The Separation (Animorphs #32), I can see the value of bringing it back up. Rachel is even more broken than she was then, and it is like at each stage of her devolution she runs right back into her struggles with herself. But because of the different stages, the time in between, she has to re-evaluate herself each time. Just like how in life, you don’t just come to a resolution for an ongoing life-change at one moment, and the issue never pops up again. No, issues can come back again and again, and each time while the issue may in essence be the same, the “you” who faces it is different. And the different “you” has to reevaluate the issue and your position with it, as Rachel is forced to do here once again.

   Given the strength of the narration, with our ever-more-unreliable narrator Rachel, with the subtle trickery and mind games that are played in this book – I mean, I would almost go so far as to relate the mental torture Rachel goes through at the hands of David and Crayak in this to how Tobias was tortured in The Illusion (Animorphs #33) in all honesty, and it was also a heavy read though in a different way – I want to give this book 5 stars. But something was … lacking. I just can’t bring myself to give it 5 stars, so 4 it is. Maybe because we still don’t know what her decision was, to kill David or not, at the end, or maybe it is because Rachel’s war with herself will never really end and we will keep running into this issue of her growing darkness.

      A girl who wanted to do the right thing.

   Fact: We aren’t like other kids.
   We were once. But never again.
   After a certain point, you just can’t go back to where you started. Even if you want to. Which I have to admit – I don’t. – page 2

   […] Tobias can morph his human self. Even choose to be that human forever, give up the morphing. The fight. Life as a bird of prey.
   But he doesn’t choose that option.
   Because, just like me, Tobias doesn’t want to go back to where he started. – page 4 – I’m so glad: finally, Rachel seems to get why Tobias doesn’t stay human.

   I wanted blood. I could smell it. I could taste it.
   Was it the grizzly in me that wanted to kill?
   Or was it the me in me?
   I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to know. – page 8 – While this is a bit of backtracking to The Separation (Animorphs #32), it also shows that Rachel really acknowledges the darkness in her now. She knows it is there. She just does not want to question it – she is afraid of the answer, she is afraid that by analyzing it, it will be real.

   < Morph, Rachel! > Cassie. < Morph, now ! >
   But I didn’t. And I wouldn’t.
   Because at that point, I knew I’d rather die than lose. – page 18 – Foreshadowing?

   “Look,” I said, “covert war stinks. It’s a nasty, underground kind of thing that screws up your head. Look at what it’s done to us. Look at the moral compromises we’ve had to make. You guys act like I’m some kind of psycho. But all I want is a fair fight. And you can’t have a fair fight with an enemy that won’t declare war!”
   I was semi-breathless when I finished with righteous indignation.
   But also with a kind of shame. – page 22-23 – (Emphasis added) – This comes out maybe because it is a dream. But it does not mean it is any less true. The Animorphs just avoid admitting it more than they have to.

   My deep, dark secret was like an elephant in the living room.
   A big purple one. With polka dots.
   Nobody talked about it.
   But everybody knew it was there.
   The secret was that whatever we’d been doing, I did like it.
   And the good guys aren’t supposed to like it. – page 24 – (emphasis added)

   Every time the memory of [David] surfaces, I feel afraid and guilty.
   What we’d done to David hadn’t been fair. Though at the time it seemed the only solution. Short of murder.
   Still.
   The idea was Cassie’s. She determined that forcing David to become a nothlit was kinder in the end than killing him.
   Sometimes I wonder: Kinder for who? For David or for us? – page 32-33 – I think you know that answer, even though it does not seem like it right now: it was kinder for the Animorphs.

   < You didn’t have the guts to kill me, Rachel. So you left me on a rock and hoped that nature would do your dirty work for you. >
   […] < It was horrible, > [David] went on.
   His voice was controlled, but barely. In it I heard incipient mania. Madness.
   < It was horrible being a rat with human intelligence. Do you know what that means? It means that every time I was forced to eat a piece of putrifying [sic] flesh, my human brain was revolted. Every single day, the rat’s need to survive made me do things my human brain found humiliating. Degrading. Gross. >
   “I feel that way every time I eat in the school cafeteria,” I said. Determined not to let him see he was getting to me.
   < Leave the one-liners to Marco, > David snapped. < He’s good at being funny. Sometimes. But you’re good at dirty work. > -- page 56-57 – David is still just as wily as before. Just with the added touch of madness that comes from being and living as the rat he always was.

   “Jake didn’t tell me to [trap you in morph],” I argued.
   David looked surprised. Well, as surprised as a rat can look, I guess.
   < He didn’t? You mean, you just decided to trap me all on your own without orders from Jake? > His voice was condescending. < Wow. I’m surprised at you, Rachel. I thought the Animorphs were supposed to be so disciplined. >
   I didn’t know what to say. What I wanted him to know. The plan had been Cassie’s. But we’d all agreed to it. Each one of us. And each one of us had had a part in it.
   Was I any more guilty because I’d done the physical dirty work? – page 62-63

   < [You’re a bully, Rachel.] You loved poking that fork against my head and threatening my family. You got off on terrorizing a poor kid who’d basically lost his whole life. If you weren’t a bully, you’d have been ashamed of yourself. >
   I had been ashamed of myself.
   But…
   I still know where the line is. And I won’t cross it.
   But I never would have tried to kill David if it hadn’t been for Jake.
   You worry about me? What do you think you’re going to do, Jake?
   Jake had sent me to “take care” of David.
   Everyone draws their own line.
   He hadn’t told me what, exactly, to do.
   But he hadn’t told me what, exactly, not to do, either.
   So that was the same as giving me permission to do whatever it took to get the job done.
   Wasn’t it? – page 66-67 – Ah, the grey lines of warfare. Let’s drive that fact home, shall we?

   David snarled. < Morph to rat. >
   “Or else, what?” I snapped. “Or else you’ll kill me? I’d rather be dead than spend the rest of my life as a rat. I’d rather be dead than be a garbage-eating, money-pilfering, sewer-dwelling, rabies-carrying rodent.”
   […]
   Why was I trying to make [David] ashamed of something he couldn’t help?
   Why was I trying to make him ashamed of being something I had made him? – page 69-70 – Maybe because you could not make him ashamed of what he almost did to the Animorphs, almost selling them out? Maybe because you are ashamed of yourself for having done this to him, and for not exactly not liking it in some way?

   [After seeming to cry for a bit, David tells Rachel to morph to rat or Cassie dies]
   I burned with fury.
   Had I really felt sorry for this piece of crap?
   David was right. We should never have stranded him on the island. We should have killed him when we had the chance. I’d known what he was. Way more than just a troubled kid.
   But killing David had seemed over the top. Barbaric.
   The reality was that I’d been afraid. Afraid to kill.
   We all had. – page 71 – That was then, this is now. To an extend you all are still afraid to kill, but you still do: Hork-Bajir, Taxxons, aliens. But not humans, not if you can avoid it.

   [After David reveals his plan to infect a large chunk of humanity with bubonic plague.]
   < […] And what’s left, we could control by threatening more plague. Just think! I, David, a rat, would be the most powerful creature in the world. Armed with one tiny bacterium of bubonic plague, and an army of rats, I could be deadlier than a nuclear arsenal. >
   All of a sudden, I realized that David wasn’t crazy.
   Well, maybe he was crazy, but his plan wasn’t. – page 79 – Ah, a mad genius.

   [Crayak said,] “You’re not Rachel anymore. You’re Super-Rachel. Can’t you feel it? The raw power?”
   I could feel it. I could feel a strange and magnificent energy coursing up and down my arms and legs, like electrical currents.
   The energy was potent. Intoxicating. Familiar.
   I’d experienced it before.
   The energy was hate. Hate now enhanced with outrageous power. And the moral certainty that I was right. That everything I thought and everything I did was right right right! – page 91 – This echoes The Weakness (Animorphs #37), with Rachel’s sentiment that she could only do right right right. So that’s how Crayak picked his angle with her. He knew what she was capable of, he just needed to push exactly all the right buttons to get her to listen to him.

   “Rachel. Think! I’m offering you a chance to destroy the Yeerks once and for all. To save the life of every human on the planet. Are you willing to sacrifice billions of lives to save just one?”
   The needs of the many versus the needs of the one.
   “You can’t make me murder Jake.” – page 104 – For now, the Animorphs are able to keep weighing the needs of the one over the needs of the many. This is possibly one of their biggest weaknesses: they value the individual so highly, that they will do anything to protect the individual.

   Kill Jake and save the human race from being conquered by the Yeerks.
   Make Jake a sacrifice. His death – the death of one human kid – would bring freedom to millions. Billions.
   And I…
   It was a deal with a devil.
   And its name was Crayak.
   “I’m one of the good guys,” I said.
   Then I tried to figure out exactly what it was that made me a good guy.
   I had no answer.
   Maybe I’d never had one. – page 104-105

   Alligator! […] Instantaneous morph! In less than a second. – page 116-117 – Except she had acquired a crocodile in The Reaction (Animorphs #12)… and then expelled the DNA from her body and could no longer morph it. But with Crayak involved, it’s hard to figure out how many of the rules actually apply…

   An epiphany. A revelation. The lightbulb switching on in my head.
   Face it, Rachel. The power is like a drug. And you are like an addict.
   Would I ever get enough? How long before I turned into a morally decrepit monster like Visser One?
   And making a deal with Crayak would only accelerate the journey to that inevitable end. – page 125 – “That inevitable end.” Just let that sink in. Rachel knows where she is headed. She still tries to rail against it, “I’m one of the good guys,” but she knows what is coming. And that she can’t stop it, ultimately. She can’t go back from the path she is on now.

   [Rachel realizes what she would look like to everyone she knows.]
   [How I would appear to] every decent person on the planet.
   Super-Rachel was not beautiful and kind and benevolent.
   She would not be honored and respected.
   She was hideous and violent and brutal.
   She would be feared by everyone.
   Despised and hated.
   A tyrant to be plotted against, just like Visser One.
   Rachel of the darkness down deep inside.
   “No.” – page 126

   [After Rachel doesn’t kill Visser One and instead lets him go]
   “What are you doing?” Crayak thundered.
   “I’m one of the good guys,” I said, panting.
   To my own ears, my voice sounded like a booming, grating echo. It was the voice of a doomsday machine.
   “You are a fool!” Crayak shouted. “You are a coward. You are weak, sentimental, childish. Worst of all, you have wasted my time. I have tried to help you free yourself from useless human emotions, but you choose captivity instead.”
   […] “I offered you everything because you had the potential to win. To lead. To rule.”
   “That’s a lie,” I argued. “You just wanted to use me to kill Jake.”
   “Do you think the Ellimist would allow that?” Crayak hissed. “Don’t you see? We are trying to bring this occupation to an end. And only a strong leader can do that.”
   < You could give Jake the power to end the war. If you wanted to. But you don’t. Because Jake really is a strong leader, and you know it. You know you can’t make him follow your rules. You know you can’t control him. Well, here’s some news, Crayak. You can’t control me, either. > -- page 126-127 – Well that was another quick, but tagless, switch back to being a rat. It fits except that there was nothing to indicate to the reader that Crayak had put her back. Also, awesome comeback, Rachel! I like that this whole leadership thing is getting resolved right here, right now. Not only because it should not have happened in the first place, but because it bolsters Rachel understanding her position, her rank in all this, as well as has her realizing that following Jake is the best course of action for them, for all of them.

   I worry about you, Rachel.
   I backed off. Slipped away, deep down under the rat brain. Let it rule. Because I didn’t trust my own brain.
   I was afraid that I was already crazy.
   Was this real?
   Was it a dream?
   Was it manipulated reality?
   “I am real,” [Crayak] droned on. “And Cassie is real. And David and his pathetic punks are real.” – page 128 – My only question is, why didn’t Rachel morph out of rat while in the box? She fit into it as a human once before, albeit very uncomfortably, but she did. And it might be uncomfortable to morph back to full size, but shouldn’t it be doable?

   Elation! It was more satisfying than any power high. I was on my way out of this trap. And, funny. I hadn’t had to use force, or terror, or pain.
   Just my brains. – page 133 – See, Rachel, you just need to give yourself some credit. Give the “Nice Rachel” part of you a chance to do her thing and think through with long-term planning.

   [Rachel is trying to demorph, midway out with the clock reading zero]
   I summoned every ounce of morphing energy. Every ounce of mental energy. Every ounce of concentratin.
   I blotted out every random thought. Tried desperately to dampen every wild emotion.
   But there was something in the way. Something stubborn and intractable that would not be ignored.
   It was the hate. The anger.
   I tried! I tried to push it away!
   But the truth was I didn’t want it to go away. I wanted my anger. I wanted my hate.
   It was the source of my strength.
   And then… miraculously… I stood and spread my arms wide.
   I was Rachel.
   I was back.
   And for the moment, I really was free. – page 135-136 – First a wolf, then a flea, now a rat. This is Rachel’s 3rd really close call with demorphing, unless I’m missing one somewhere. And here, we see how “Mean Rachel” must exist to help Rachel get through what must be done.

[Chelsea · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up.
This is another solo adventure, this time for Rachel. And man does this cover suck. So as the blurb suggest David is back for revenge. And the dang cliffhanger ending! What did Rachel decide in the end?

I liked the exploration of her psyche but felt it got too repetitive near the end. Like we get it, Rachel doesn't like to be seen as a monster but knows she'll do the dirty deeds if need be. There were genuine moments where I gasped though and that's why I'm so on the fence with this one!

[cyrus · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is one of the animorphs books that reminds me why i only give 4 stars to some animorphs books that are overall pretty great. sometimes ka applegate is really exploring dilemmas and emotions that no one else out here is thinking about and is knocking it out of the park. david coming back for revenge is exciting enough and i would have been happy with another book about rachel's bloodlust, but this one's also about guilt, complicity, and scapegoating between rachel and all the animorphs as well as david. diabolically good stuff and it doesn't even matter that i'd entirely forgotten who crayak is.

[Trevor Abbott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rachel: “I’m going after David”
Cassie: “No Rachel, just leave him… I don’t know if you’ll survive taking him to the island again”
Rachel: “You’re right, I might not. So will you take him?”
Cassie: *silence*
Rachel: “Yep, that’s what I thought.”

Rachel is constantly having to be the bad guy so the others can retain their morality and innocence. But at the end of the day they still give her tons of crap and reprimands, yeah maybe I get why she is a little easier to rage and scream. I’d feel insane carrying around all that guilt on my shoulders alone

[Cienna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely WILD ride. Rat attacks human with red eyeball, mirages, bud spray. Human turns into unjolly green giant and fake murders rat. Then real murders rat. Maybe.

[ella · Rating 5 out of 5]

i’m Teary Eyed… ouuggghhh these last two books have made it hurt more than ever. it’s so unfair that she has to die. it’s so unfair that she has to be the good guy that does the bad things so everyone else can be actual good guys and she can just pretend that she’s good too. i mean, rachel said it best, “i’d been protecting her. them. jake. cassie. tobias. even marco and ax. helping to protect their innocence. letting them see themselves as the good guys. it was a symbiotic relationship. or co-dependent, whatever. they needed me to be the bad guy. and i needed them to be the good guys.” it’s just so unfair that all of this is thrust on her when she never asked for it. but i guess none of them wanted the roles they were thrust into. i hate reading about david, he makes me feel actually ill. and cassie kind of pissed me off at the end of this book but at that point, rachel understands what role cassie plays and what role rachel must play as a result of that. whatever the ellimist said and all that. you were brave, you were strong, you were good, you mattered.

[Katelynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

They're really pulling out all the stops for these last books. Rachel breaks my heart. "They needed me to be the bad guy. And I needed them to be the good guys." The saddest thing is she knows how dangerous she is, but has no way of saving herself. This is the first time she admits she's an addict, and everyone knows it, but once again she's left in the end to do the horrible thing that no one else can. She literally battles and turns her back on her true self in an attempt to be one of the good guys that she wants to be but intrinsically just isn't - and they leave her to fall deeper into the hole she (and they) have made for her. She's a brave little soldier girl and she breaks my heart.

[Caitlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I'm one of the good guys"
"Then do the right thing"

*SOBBING FOREVER*

Hard to write in-depth review on phone. Will try to add more later.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Now we're at Rachael's final book. And for our final books for each narrator, I assume they will try to cap off their arc and sum up who they were. This certainly does that for Racheal. Ghostwriter is Kimberly Moriss although it is miscredited to Lisa Harkraider, whoops. Even the book doesn't fix this. Kim previously did The Arrival which was a sleeper favorite for me. Writing wise, this leans more into the short sentences but mostly in effective ways. There's a couple annoying bits but that goes away not far in. This feels like like an Ellen book than last week's weirdly enough, it gets to the dark heart of the series. And of course, vocab words abound.

This isn't on the same level as Arrival but I enjoyed it a lot. This whole book was a lot. Plot is hard to sum up but basically David returns and wants revenge, and he has a little help from Cryak. That's really all I can as it feels like everything is a spoiler here.

The Stranger is the book that truly defined Racheal I feel, and it introduced The Ellimist. The Solution, the final David trilogy book, summed her up perfectly and was a standout outing for her. A Racheal book, The Exposed, dealt with some Cryak stuff. So it fits that her last book has elements of all of these books, it really sums her up and works as her final book.

In essence, this is a psychological horror story. From the start, it's hard to know what is real and what isn't, as everything takes a toll on her. As we know, she's impuslive and is more willingly to do messed up things for the greater good without thinking that hard about. The others know this and use it, but are a bit scared. This goes into how she feels about that, as she's given chances to give into her nature, but at what cost?

It's pretty effective and messes with your head, especially as all hell breaks loose. This uses that element to get away with some silly shit. Some things are very Saturday Morning Cartoon and I was here for it, as silly as it was. Spoilers, some things aren't real, some things are. I won't say which is what, but eventually it's clear what is going on to some extent and thanks to Cryak being involved, anything goes.

The ending moment is chilling and emotional. Abrupt, so I'm not sure about, but it works. It leaves you wondering what Rachel is going to do next, and it works as a final moment for the book. Oh and this has David in it.

This seems to be a divisive one I think, and I assume David is the reason why. If you're hoping for something super deep with him, you...kinda get that? We do see what he is up to and explore some of his emotions. I said before that his transition to this level of evil was a bit off given how he started and this basically leans even further into his evil. But we get that human side of him too, and the way it ends reflects that.

But at a certain point, it gets lost in other stuff. At a certain point I forgot he was even here, which isn't great. It brings itself around in the end, but it does meander from the point a bit. It's still enjoyable, it is never boring and I always really into it.

But critically, it has a few bumps at certain points, you could have scaled some of this back a bit. But I as pretty into it, it gets out there in ways I appreciate. And yes, the cover has context, oh boy. It uses the weird-ness to get Rachel's head and takes us to dark, weird places. It's not perfect but it pays off well.

I really liked it, it'll rank solidly for me. Not everything with David was perfect but otherwise this was highly enjoyable, engaging and weird. And after some mixed entries, it ends Racheal on a good note, summing her up well. This had vibes of The Familiar but this worked better for me as it has more of an impact on the overall story, while that was just a pretty good one off.

And yeah, that's what I got. What a ride. Next time, the final Tobias book, I can only imagine how bummed out we'll be there. See ya then.

[Jenny Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

An much better take on solo Rachel this time around I don't like the change in the cover models that much, because they seam to be much younger than the kids portrayed in the books, but that's just a secondary concern.

Fact: We aren't like other kids.
We were once. But never again.
After a certain point, you just can't go back to where you started. Even if you want to. Which I have to admit -- I don't.

Been a long time since you have wanted to be normal there Rachel.

Oxygen was returning to my body. And along with it, all the hate I felt for the Yeerks. For what they had done to Tobias. For what they had done to all of us.
I was glad the covert war was over. Glad not to have to pretend anymore.
"Tobias is down," I said. "I saw him get hit. The Yeerks want war, they'll get it."
"Everybody slow down," Jake cautioned. But he looked at me when he said it.
Jake never loses a chance to imply that I'm some kind of shoot-first-ask-questions-later loose cannon. I gulped some air, tried to slow my pulse. Jake is our leader. We do what he says.
At least we have so far. But it gets harder and harder for me. Maybe for all of us.

Something snapped. Some spring inside me just went BOOINNGGGG!

Look," I said, "covert war stinks. It's a nasty, underground kind of thing that screws up your head. Look at what it's done to us. Look at the moral compromises we've had to make. You guys act like I'm some kind of psycho. But all I want is a fair fight. And you can't have a fair fight with an enemy that won't declare war!"

I was semi-breathless when I finished with righteous indignation. But also with a kind of shame. Ax and Marco were giving me that big-eyed look. The kind of look that clearly said they didn't believe what I was saying and were pretty sure I didn't believe it, either.

The secret was that whatever we'd been doing, I did like it.
And the good guys aren't supposed to like it.

I felt like I was watching everyone from behind a Plexiglass window. I just wasn't there. I couldn't relate, not to the teachers, the boys, the girls. I couldn't even pretend to relate.
I didn't know how much longer I could keep up the pretense that I was just another kid. Just another kid with nothing more important to worry about than zits and pop quizzes.
I felt like I was going to explode.


"I did what I had to do," I said, trying to hide my distress beneath a tone of conviction. "When you were threatening us. When we thought you'd killed Tobias. Jake sent me after you because he knew I would do what was necessary."
You, Rachel, you love it. It's what makes you so brave. It's what makes you so dangerous. I don't know what will happen to you if it all ends someday.
Jake.
Neither one of us had exactly distinguished ourselves over the David episode. Not me. Not Jake.

I burned with fury.
Had I really felt sorry for this piece of crap?
David was right. We should never have stranded him on the island. We should have killed him when we had the chance. I'd known what he was. Way more than just a troubled kid.
But killing David had seemed over the top. Barbaric.
The reality was that I'd been afraid. Afraid to kill.
We all had.
I saw now that I, at least, had just been weak.

"I'm one of the good guys," I said.
Then I tried to figure out exactly what it was that made me a good guy.
I had no answer.
Maybe I'd never had one.
Crayak chuckled again.
"Good guys. Bad guys. It seems so simple, and yet it is anything but."

This was really a good one, with David coming back and the way it haunts Rachel, and her whole "Behind the plexiglass" thought and her battling the darkness and wining for now. And that last quote about not knowing what was right... damn this was a roller coaster!

[Jonathan Pongratz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Original Review at Jaunts & Haunts

3.5/5

I gave this book three and a half stars.

This time around we're in Rachel's POV, my personal favorite. Rachel is going through some serious PTSD after all that she's been through and battling her darker side. If that wasn't enough, after a series of terrifying dreams, Rachel finds herself trapped underground in a cube. The culprit? David. Can Rachel figure a way out of this or will she have to negotiate with this selfish little rat (pun intended)?

This book was pretty good. I wanted to love it like all the other more recent ones (#45-47 has been a serious turning point), but there were a couple things that bugged me and dragged my score down a bit.

Let's start with Rachel. I enjoyed reading her POV like always. I think the PTSD that was portrayed made sense. I mean, there's only so many battles and questionable actions you can make before those actions catch up with you. I felt really bad for her, and I get where she's coming from. At the same time, her personality felt off. A central theme this time was animosity towards Jake, but for me it didn't work. Yes, they've had issues in the past with leadership and control of a situation, but ultimately they love each other because they are family. I didn't feel that was portrayed. It just centered on the negativity of everything and her PTSD, but her love for her cousin would have still been a big factor in the decision-making process given her situation.

The plot was fun, a little bit more on the psychological thriller side given Rachel's PTSD. But there is more at play than meets the eye, and that mystery was fun to be engaged in. At first, there didn't seem to be a lot at stake besides Rachel's fate, though that definitely changed as things went on. I particularly enjoyed Super-Rachel. I think her going through that really allowed her to see herself at her best and worst.

I will say, there was a point where she couldn't morph that didn't seem to make sense to me. I trailed back but couldn't find an explanation, so I took off some starage for that. Also, in general I think this adventure was a smidgen disappointing given how everything is so ramped up now. We didn't really get a sense of that in this book.

In the end, this book was a fun adventure. Yes, it was flawed, but it was still an important journey for Rachel to go through, and I enjoyed it. Worth a read if Rachel's your favorite!

[Kate Crabtree · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5.

The Return picks up where #22 left off. David returns, captures Rachel and Cassie, and threatens to suffocate Cassie if Rachel doesn’t morph rat and stay beyond the 2 hour limit.

The plot really doesn’t matter much, though (in fact, it’s pretty lame, hence the 3.5 stars)- instead, we’re privy to Rachel’s deepest worries, which focus on the following:

1. Her guilt over being addicted to/loving the war
2. Her frustration over the Animorphs feeing wary about her aggression. After all, Jake often uses her, fully knowing what she’ll do in a given situation, and while he would never do it himself, he knows Rachel will get the job done. And Cassie was the one who came up with the precise plan to ensure David was stuck in rat morph, and yet Rachel feels that since she was the one to carry out the plot she’s the bad guy.

She reflects, rather astutely, “Did [Jake] generally approve of my actions? No. only of their results. He
needed my results.

So why had I been carrying around all that guilt, all by myself? Why had I been shouldering so much of the pain?... I'd been protecting her. Them. Jake. Cassie. Tobias. Even Marco.”

I’m not sure if these epiphanies bring her much peace, but they’re important. She seems to realize she’s taking one for the team. The problem is, however... who will she be after the war ends? Will she be a functioning member of society?

At the end, she escapes, and suggests Cassie leave before her. Cassie realizes she’s going to eliminate David and suggests they leave together. Rachel, feeing the hypocrisy, and realizing that letting David go again is bad news, says she’s not sure if she can do it, and asks if Cassie can. Unsurprisingly, Cassie wants nothing to do with it. So we’re left with Rachel crying “I’m one of the good guys,” and David begging Rachel to kill him.

We’re not told in this book if she ends up doing the deed. I hope she doesn’t. Let me end this with an insight she has about David:
“In spite of everything, I felt sorry for him.
I felt sorry for David and sorry for me. Sorry for what the war had done to us both.
It wasn't David's fault that he was a rat, that he was insane. He was what we had made him
But that didn't make him any less dangerous. We couldn't control him. We couldn't trust him. And on the loose, he could destroy the entire planet.”

Poor Rachel.

[Juushika · Rating 3 out of 5]

The framing and plotting here leaves something to be desired. Dream-like sequences are hard; these have a strong atmosphere, but their repetitive structure makes for a slow start. Crayak is too unambiguous an antagonist (and this clearly isn't the end of the series), so there's no real threat that Rachel will be won over. But the internal conflict, in Rachel's conscience and in her relationship with David, is phenomenal. It avoids retreading familiar ground by escalating its scale, as the series approaches its end and bloodlust becomes Rachel's defining character trait. This series has had some great endings, and this is one of the very best: all confrontation, no resolution, and so the burden is on the reader to internalize Rachel's mindset and determine what she probably did, and if we support her, and in what ways her decision matters.

It's a mirror image to the phenomenal Cassie book, The Departure (Book 19). Not as well constructed, but asking parallel ethical questions of radically different characters at two distinct points in their battle: now knowing what this will entail, can you continue? / now knowing how this has changed you, can you end it?

[Cat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another Rachel book! I primarily listen to these in audiobook format, and I absolutely adore Rachel's narrator. She does such a good job at narrating, and characterizes my view of Rachel so much.

The earlier parts of the book was so difficult to read due to the clear PTSD she's experiencing, even if it turns out to be Krayak messing with her on some of it. I don't believe it was ALL Krayak, as we've seen her struggle with how others view her in the past as well.

I know others don't like David coming back, but I do love how we examine the morality of it. How it weighs on them. How David IS just another kid, experiencing a lot. That Rachel started to anthromorphize David as a rat and realized he was still human.

[Toby Rude · Rating 4 out of 5]

Noen ting i denne boka er litt crazy. Noen av karakterene husker jeg ikke så mye til, jeg har ikke fått lest noe annet enn mainline serien (ingen mega-morphs eller krøniker), men han som teller er fra den beste «trilogien» i serien

David er en veldig interessant karakter og jeg liker hvordan han kommer tilbake. Jeg er ikke så glad i drømmesekvensene og mega Rachel fra coveret, men denne opprampingen mot slutten funker for meg så derfor får den 4/5

[isaac · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was all over the place!
We got some really cool scenes in this one, my favorites were mecha rachel fighting visser 1, swarm of rats running the city, and jake v rachel. This whole book was basically Rachel letting her guilt finally show, and I’m so glad she’s not some flat heartless monster. I think the open ending was very fitting for this story. I don’t know where that could go but I think that’s the point. The point of David was never to show how much better the Animorphs are, he’s all their worst qualities and can tease that out of them. He almost won here too, but the power of friendship prevails again!

Tobias totally should’ve swept in and ate David without a second thought lol
but in all seriousness the ending was super powerful and we got to see how strong Rachel really is. I hope the rest of the animorphs stop looking at her like she’s crazy.

[Justice · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been a long time since there was a great Rachel book. It's a hard balance between pushing her rage and bloodthirstyness and not letting her be one dimensional. But this was great. And the ending scene was perfect (although I hope there are answers!)

[Muffin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good one! I get pretty annoyed by stuff with Crayak/Ellemist because I think it’s kind of a stupid deus ex machina but I liked that this one went deep into Rachel’s whole thing. Good Rachel content.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jesus Christ this hits hard. This is one of the most cohesively written plots in the series despite the number of events and twists. All of these kids have lost their childhood, but Rachel more than anyone has lost her sanity. Probably the best-written Rachel story in the series.

[Marty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m The Big Rat Who Makes All Of Da Rules