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Animorphs #49
The Diversion (Animorphs) by Katherine A. Applegate
The Yeerks are finally starting to realize that the "Andalite bandits" are probably not aliens at all. They're finally starting to realize that maybe they've been dealing with humans all along. And no one--especially the newly appointed Visser One--is happy with this knowledge. Not happy at all.When Tobias, the other Animorphs, and Ax realize that the Yeerks are about to find them, it's by accident. But that doesn't make the discovery any less serious. Because in war, one side wins. And one side loses...
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First published December 1, 2000
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K.A. Applegate
251 books480 followersalso published under the name Katherine Applegate
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September 29, 2024
The Yeerks are gathering DNA. Since the Yeerks are not only collecting DNA of animals but of people too, they realize the Yeerks must have finally figured out that the Animorphs are not Andalites but humans. So the Animorphs are very much in trouble. They need to get their families to a safe place quickly, before it’s too late.
It has been a very long time coming. But after an army of filler stories, there’s finally another book that changes something to the status quo again and drives the overarching plot forward. After the revelation that the Animorphs are humans, the Yeerks take the fight against the Animorphs to the next level by targeting their families. And we quickly see that the final battle against the Yeerks has properly begun. This is the start of the climax of the whole series, and there’s no turning back now.
It’s also quite brilliant to let Tobias be the point of view narrator for this book. It could have been much easier to pick Jake as the narrator since his brother’s already under control of the Yeerks. But Tobias’s family has been a bit of a mystery for most of the series. So this story feels like a great way to fill in some blanks and give him some more emotional character development.
Finally, the Animorphs series is properly shifting gears. And I’m definitely looking forward to the finale now.
It has been a very long time coming. But after an army of filler stories, there’s finally another book that changes something to the status quo again and drives the overarching plot forward. After the revelation that the Animorphs are humans, the Yeerks take the fight against the Animorphs to the next level by targeting their families. And we quickly see that the final battle against the Yeerks has properly begun. This is the start of the climax of the whole series, and there’s no turning back now.
It’s also quite brilliant to let Tobias be the point of view narrator for this book. It could have been much easier to pick Jake as the narrator since his brother’s already under control of the Yeerks. But Tobias’s family has been a bit of a mystery for most of the series. So this story feels like a great way to fill in some blanks and give him some more emotional character development.
Finally, the Animorphs series is properly shifting gears. And I’m definitely looking forward to the finale now.
December 23, 2018
In what might be one of the most efficient stories in the series, The Diversion delivers an emotionally intense blow to the Animorphs as Applegate hammers home to her readers that nothing will ever be the same.
In Tobias’ last solo turn as narrator, we learn that the Yeerks have finally clued into the possibility that these Andalite bandits are actually humans. So they’ve begun a massive project of sifting through DNA samples, trying to find matches that include bits of animal DNA as well. When the Animorphs raid the lab where they believe this is happening, they discover that they might be too late: the Yeerks have already started finding matches. So now it’s a race against the clock to save their families—but if they do that, then it means coming clean about what they have done these past years, and it means everyone, not just Marco, will have to accept a life on the run.
In some ways, this is a book that could only have been told from Tobias’ perspective.
Firstly, it needs to be from Tobias’ perspective in order to include his parent, his mother, Loren, whom we learned about (and actually met) back in The Andalite Chronicles but whose status has been unknown for a long time. Now Tobias has found her, and he makes the bold move of contacting her in order to save her from the Yeerks. This is a monumental moment for Tobias, because up until now, his only human companions have been the other Animorphs. The book opens with a touching scene between Tobias and Rachel after Tobias loses a hunt to a rattlesnake interloper: Rachel brings him a burger, which he appreciates despite the ding to his dignity it entails. Applegate and ghostwriter Lisa Harkrader simultaneously show us Rachel and Tobias’ budding relationship while reminding us of how much Tobias has adapted to life as a red-tailed hawk. But with his mother back in the picture, Tobias suddenly has this other connection—and more to lose.
Secondly, Tobias’ estrangement from both his birth family as well as the family members who “cared” for him while he was a human boy makes his perspective quite unique. This would be such a different book if it were from Jake’s perspective. We get enough, through the dialogue, to learn how torn up Jake feels about what he perceives as bad calls on his part: rushing in to the lab, and it’s a disaster; moving to move their parents too slowly, and it’s a disaster. Tobias finally realizes that Jake isn’t any stronger or better at this than the rest of them. Jake, too, is just a scared boy struggling to keep it together. Tobias has always been an interesting element of the Animorph dynamic for this reason: as an outsider even when he was human, his grasp of the others’ characters hasn’t always been accurate. And he has still kind of been the outsider Animorph, the nothlit, and it’s really fascinating to see how that colours and informs his reactions to the others.
The Diversion also highlights something that, in my opinion, Applegate often underplayed up until this point: how fucking terrifying Visser One can be when he wants. Hear me out. Up until now, Visser One has often come across as a comical kind of antagonist. He reminds me a little of Skeletor. Now and again, we’d get a glimpse of the evil within, the genius mastermind who is ready to take on Earth and then take the Earth. For the most part, though, in his direct encounters with the Animorphs, there has always been this element of bumbling villain that lets them defeat him.
But here, in this book, we finally understand how screwed the Animorphs would have been earlier in the series had Visser One discovered their identities. The moment he figures out they might be human, he turns all these resources onto a clever project to unmask them—and he basically succeeds. The Animorphs have been lucky up to this point.
Running through the entire story, of course, is the constant reminder that we’re coming up on the final battle. I think even the Animorphs themselves recognize it now. Visser One’s promotion means he has the authority to prosecute an open invasion. The gloves are coming off. The Animorphs are being backed into a corner. Even the little things, like giving Loren morphing ability, show us how all the rules that previously held in this series are starting to fall away.
This is a fantastic book, not just for what it is by itself, but for the role it plays within the series. It isn’t filler (which is the worst); it simultaneously manages to set up and hint at the bigger events to come while still delivering a great story on its own merit.
Next time, the Animorphs have to make more hard choices about how they can continue to protect this planet.
My reviews of Animorphs:
← #48: The Return | #50: The Ultimate →
In Tobias’ last solo turn as narrator, we learn that the Yeerks have finally clued into the possibility that these Andalite bandits are actually humans. So they’ve begun a massive project of sifting through DNA samples, trying to find matches that include bits of animal DNA as well. When the Animorphs raid the lab where they believe this is happening, they discover that they might be too late: the Yeerks have already started finding matches. So now it’s a race against the clock to save their families—but if they do that, then it means coming clean about what they have done these past years, and it means everyone, not just Marco, will have to accept a life on the run.
In some ways, this is a book that could only have been told from Tobias’ perspective.
Firstly, it needs to be from Tobias’ perspective in order to include his parent, his mother, Loren, whom we learned about (and actually met) back in The Andalite Chronicles but whose status has been unknown for a long time. Now Tobias has found her, and he makes the bold move of contacting her in order to save her from the Yeerks. This is a monumental moment for Tobias, because up until now, his only human companions have been the other Animorphs. The book opens with a touching scene between Tobias and Rachel after Tobias loses a hunt to a rattlesnake interloper: Rachel brings him a burger, which he appreciates despite the ding to his dignity it entails. Applegate and ghostwriter Lisa Harkrader simultaneously show us Rachel and Tobias’ budding relationship while reminding us of how much Tobias has adapted to life as a red-tailed hawk. But with his mother back in the picture, Tobias suddenly has this other connection—and more to lose.
Secondly, Tobias’ estrangement from both his birth family as well as the family members who “cared” for him while he was a human boy makes his perspective quite unique. This would be such a different book if it were from Jake’s perspective. We get enough, through the dialogue, to learn how torn up Jake feels about what he perceives as bad calls on his part: rushing in to the lab, and it’s a disaster; moving to move their parents too slowly, and it’s a disaster. Tobias finally realizes that Jake isn’t any stronger or better at this than the rest of them. Jake, too, is just a scared boy struggling to keep it together. Tobias has always been an interesting element of the Animorph dynamic for this reason: as an outsider even when he was human, his grasp of the others’ characters hasn’t always been accurate. And he has still kind of been the outsider Animorph, the nothlit, and it’s really fascinating to see how that colours and informs his reactions to the others.
The Diversion also highlights something that, in my opinion, Applegate often underplayed up until this point: how fucking terrifying Visser One can be when he wants. Hear me out. Up until now, Visser One has often come across as a comical kind of antagonist. He reminds me a little of Skeletor. Now and again, we’d get a glimpse of the evil within, the genius mastermind who is ready to take on Earth and then take the Earth. For the most part, though, in his direct encounters with the Animorphs, there has always been this element of bumbling villain that lets them defeat him.
But here, in this book, we finally understand how screwed the Animorphs would have been earlier in the series had Visser One discovered their identities. The moment he figures out they might be human, he turns all these resources onto a clever project to unmask them—and he basically succeeds. The Animorphs have been lucky up to this point.
Running through the entire story, of course, is the constant reminder that we’re coming up on the final battle. I think even the Animorphs themselves recognize it now. Visser One’s promotion means he has the authority to prosecute an open invasion. The gloves are coming off. The Animorphs are being backed into a corner. Even the little things, like giving Loren morphing ability, show us how all the rules that previously held in this series are starting to fall away.
This is a fantastic book, not just for what it is by itself, but for the role it plays within the series. It isn’t filler (which is the worst); it simultaneously manages to set up and hint at the bigger events to come while still delivering a great story on its own merit.
Next time, the Animorphs have to make more hard choices about how they can continue to protect this planet.
My reviews of Animorphs:
← #48: The Return | #50: The Ultimate →
December 4, 2015
Ghostwriter: Lisa Harkrader.
These next few reviews are going to be a blurry mess, because I blazed through them in a flurry of feelings and "oh my god what happens next WHAT HAPPENS NEXT", and am only just now backtracking to fill them in. Since things leapt into high gear back in #45, we've entered a new (and final) phase of the war, and this book kicks it up yet another notch. I'm going to put all my discussion under a spoiler cut, because I don't want potential early readers to know what's going on in this late-game...
It's another fantastic, five-star book as things hurtle towards the finale. That's pretty much all I can say.
Favourite quotes below:
These next few reviews are going to be a blurry mess, because I blazed through them in a flurry of feelings and "oh my god what happens next WHAT HAPPENS NEXT", and am only just now backtracking to fill them in. Since things leapt into high gear back in #45, we've entered a new (and final) phase of the war, and this book kicks it up yet another notch. I'm going to put all my discussion under a spoiler cut, because I don't want potential early readers to know what's going on in this late-game...
It's another fantastic, five-star book as things hurtle towards the finale. That's pretty much all I can say.
Favourite quotes below:
September 14, 2015
There's a reason why I will always be a fan of Tobias - he's consistently sad and broken no matter how hard he tries. I have no idea why I end up liking characters who have this massive tragedy within them that just don't go away, because I don't have this kind of life, I don't relate to this, but, ah, yeah, maybe that's exactly why.
This book's really sad. And it's about to get sadder. Actually Rachel started the sadness in book 48. But Tobias-sad is a different kind, it's Van Gogh sad, in my opinion. I can't help but be afraid that he'll lose it anytime. And not even Rachel would be able to save him from himself.
A lot of revelations happened. It turned out Loren was still alive, and has a strong reason on why she abandoned her son. Yes, omg, my favorite boy has a mom. Finally, a family. But it was really painful seeing him wish for more out of this.
*spoilers
Jake's family gets left behind. :[ Tom's yeerk is even worse than I thought.
All in all, it was hard to re-read this book. It's so silly, I know what I got myself into, some pains are just worth it. Hahahahahaha*cries. TOBIAS BE BRAVE MY SON. BE BRAVE.
This book's really sad. And it's about to get sadder. Actually Rachel started the sadness in book 48. But Tobias-sad is a different kind, it's Van Gogh sad, in my opinion. I can't help but be afraid that he'll lose it anytime. And not even Rachel would be able to save him from himself.
A lot of revelations happened. It turned out Loren was still alive, and has a strong reason on why she abandoned her son. Yes, omg, my favorite boy has a mom. Finally, a family. But it was really painful seeing him wish for more out of this.
*spoilers
Jake's family gets left behind. :[ Tom's yeerk is even worse than I thought.
All in all, it was hard to re-read this book. It's so silly, I know what I got myself into, some pains are just worth it. Hahahahahaha*cries. TOBIAS BE BRAVE MY SON. BE BRAVE.
August 7, 2014
As much as I wished these things would never end, I wanted to see how it ends up. Things are changing that never changed before--the Yeerks know who the Animorphs are, and are ready to use their humanity against them by going after their families. Finally drastic measures must be taken. This one doesn't miss a beat--the fear and disbelief inherent in the families discovering their children aren't what they've been pretending to be for ages, and the idea that they have to put their trust in their offsprings' hands. . . . Wow.
Notable moments and inconsistencies:
This book is ghostwritten by Lisa Harkrader.
Rachel brings Tobias some food and says "I know you have to eat it as a hawk." This suggests that at this late stage in the game the author IS saying morphed people have to eat in their natural bodies and that eating while in a morphed body will not last. This seems to contradict what they did in a previous book when they ate while morphed in order to sustain themselves.
There's a line that seems a bit inaccurate: "When we'd rescued Marco's mom, we'd also had to rescue his dad." That suggests the rescue of his dad was because they rescued his mom, but his dad was actually taken to safety first, and it was pretty much unrelated to his mom's liberation; they don't even receive word that Visser One was to be taken to Earth for execution until after his dad has already been taken to the free Hork-Bajir valley.
The Animorphs stage a ruckus in order to get a chance to disable the Gleet Bio-Filter, which is the only thing stopping them from getting inside the building they want to investigate. When Rachel succeeds in doing this, a helpful computerized voice announces that the bio-filter is deactivated and has gone into "immediate shutdown." This makes it sound very contrived and awfully convenient. Why would an error message announce exactly the information they need to know? Seems more like a smart way to program it would be that if it goes offline, it sends a message to someone who can fix it or someone who's in charge of security. After very obvious commotion goes down outside (and the bio-filter is offline), it also seems ridiculous that a guard inside doesn't suspect anything and everyone just goes about their business as if nothing unusual just happened at the door.
Another contrived event happens immediately after the Animorphs gain entry to the facility: Marco has a new morphing outfit, and the shirt of it happens to be the color of the armbands that elite Hork-Bajir guards wear. They decide to make use of this coincidence and pretend to be those guards, even though they hadn't planned it. Using the shirt as a solution would have been a much less coincidental happening if they'd just planned it ahead of time, because it was a good idea.
It's obvious from previous incidents that the Yeerks can tell Hork-Bajir apart pretty easily, as Visser One (previously Visser Three) knew certain Hork-Bajir at a glance. Considering that, it seems fishy that the Animorphs assume they can just slap on blue armbands and no one will question them. It's like assuming you could morph any human and put on their clothes and everyone would accept you as that human.
Marco jokes that the Yeerks are "from another galaxy." Considering the Andalite home world is only 82 light years away from Earth and it was never suggested that the Yeerk home world was incredibly far away from the Andalites, it's unlikely that they're from outside the galaxy. The Milky Way is 100,000 light years across and 1,000 light years thick, and the closest other galaxies to the Milky Way are at least 25,000 light years away.
This book has a Pokémon reference. Rachel's little sisters think Ax is a Pokémon.
When Tobias morphs into Champ, Loren's guide dog, he refers to knowing he's Champ and knowing he has "responsibilities." This suggests he has the memories and training of the guide dog, which isn't consistent with the morphing rules. Being responsible the way guide dogs are trained is not innate.
The whole scene in the convenience store is very awkwardly written and hard to believe in. There is no way a couple of hoodlums harassing a blind woman and temporarily kidnapping her dog would be responded to by the blind woman with silence. Loren doesn't speak the whole time the unfamiliar teenagers are messing with her, taking stuff out of her basket, or leading her dog away from her into another room. Her only acknowledgment that it even happened comes after the dog is returned to her. If she cares about being able to get home or about her dog's life and well-being, she'd never let disrespectful teenage boys take the dog away from her. Seems like any blind person would scream for the clerk to call the cops or something.
It seems unlikely, also, that Tobias would suspect his mother of being a Controller at all considering she's blind and the Yeerks love the sense of sight. They wouldn't want a damaged host.
Another "way-too-convenient" happening: Tobias manages to find, open, and read the very piece of paper that tells him his mother has amnesia, in a claim form from an insurance company. The narration acknowledges that a reunion involving amnesia is like something on a soap opera . . . but his finding the paper (and not being worried about rooting around in such a way that he wakes his mother) is a bit ridiculous. He also stays there the entire night and his friends don't come to check on him or make sure he hasn't been captured along with his mother, which is especially ridiculous considering Yeerks are watching her house.
Several of Applegate's books make blindness out to be horrific--mostly from the point of view of Yeerks who are blind in their natural state and then become sighted creatures by taking over host bodies. They hate the idea of going back to blindness after being sighted, and they harp on it a lot. But in this book a human does it too--Loren even claims she doesn't want to go back to being a blind human while she's DYING AS A DISMEMBERED HAWK. Perhaps Applegate and the ghostwriters of Animorphs ought to take some sensitivity courses before acting as though blindness is a fate worse than death.
Rachel's father is left as a dangling unknown. They didn't go after him and bring him to safety; Rachel simply said he would find his way there and they didn't follow up on it.
Notable moments and inconsistencies:
This book is ghostwritten by Lisa Harkrader.
Rachel brings Tobias some food and says "I know you have to eat it as a hawk." This suggests that at this late stage in the game the author IS saying morphed people have to eat in their natural bodies and that eating while in a morphed body will not last. This seems to contradict what they did in a previous book when they ate while morphed in order to sustain themselves.
There's a line that seems a bit inaccurate: "When we'd rescued Marco's mom, we'd also had to rescue his dad." That suggests the rescue of his dad was because they rescued his mom, but his dad was actually taken to safety first, and it was pretty much unrelated to his mom's liberation; they don't even receive word that Visser One was to be taken to Earth for execution until after his dad has already been taken to the free Hork-Bajir valley.
The Animorphs stage a ruckus in order to get a chance to disable the Gleet Bio-Filter, which is the only thing stopping them from getting inside the building they want to investigate. When Rachel succeeds in doing this, a helpful computerized voice announces that the bio-filter is deactivated and has gone into "immediate shutdown." This makes it sound very contrived and awfully convenient. Why would an error message announce exactly the information they need to know? Seems more like a smart way to program it would be that if it goes offline, it sends a message to someone who can fix it or someone who's in charge of security. After very obvious commotion goes down outside (and the bio-filter is offline), it also seems ridiculous that a guard inside doesn't suspect anything and everyone just goes about their business as if nothing unusual just happened at the door.
Another contrived event happens immediately after the Animorphs gain entry to the facility: Marco has a new morphing outfit, and the shirt of it happens to be the color of the armbands that elite Hork-Bajir guards wear. They decide to make use of this coincidence and pretend to be those guards, even though they hadn't planned it. Using the shirt as a solution would have been a much less coincidental happening if they'd just planned it ahead of time, because it was a good idea.
It's obvious from previous incidents that the Yeerks can tell Hork-Bajir apart pretty easily, as Visser One (previously Visser Three) knew certain Hork-Bajir at a glance. Considering that, it seems fishy that the Animorphs assume they can just slap on blue armbands and no one will question them. It's like assuming you could morph any human and put on their clothes and everyone would accept you as that human.
Marco jokes that the Yeerks are "from another galaxy." Considering the Andalite home world is only 82 light years away from Earth and it was never suggested that the Yeerk home world was incredibly far away from the Andalites, it's unlikely that they're from outside the galaxy. The Milky Way is 100,000 light years across and 1,000 light years thick, and the closest other galaxies to the Milky Way are at least 25,000 light years away.
This book has a Pokémon reference. Rachel's little sisters think Ax is a Pokémon.
When Tobias morphs into Champ, Loren's guide dog, he refers to knowing he's Champ and knowing he has "responsibilities." This suggests he has the memories and training of the guide dog, which isn't consistent with the morphing rules. Being responsible the way guide dogs are trained is not innate.
The whole scene in the convenience store is very awkwardly written and hard to believe in. There is no way a couple of hoodlums harassing a blind woman and temporarily kidnapping her dog would be responded to by the blind woman with silence. Loren doesn't speak the whole time the unfamiliar teenagers are messing with her, taking stuff out of her basket, or leading her dog away from her into another room. Her only acknowledgment that it even happened comes after the dog is returned to her. If she cares about being able to get home or about her dog's life and well-being, she'd never let disrespectful teenage boys take the dog away from her. Seems like any blind person would scream for the clerk to call the cops or something.
It seems unlikely, also, that Tobias would suspect his mother of being a Controller at all considering she's blind and the Yeerks love the sense of sight. They wouldn't want a damaged host.
Another "way-too-convenient" happening: Tobias manages to find, open, and read the very piece of paper that tells him his mother has amnesia, in a claim form from an insurance company. The narration acknowledges that a reunion involving amnesia is like something on a soap opera . . . but his finding the paper (and not being worried about rooting around in such a way that he wakes his mother) is a bit ridiculous. He also stays there the entire night and his friends don't come to check on him or make sure he hasn't been captured along with his mother, which is especially ridiculous considering Yeerks are watching her house.
Several of Applegate's books make blindness out to be horrific--mostly from the point of view of Yeerks who are blind in their natural state and then become sighted creatures by taking over host bodies. They hate the idea of going back to blindness after being sighted, and they harp on it a lot. But in this book a human does it too--Loren even claims she doesn't want to go back to being a blind human while she's DYING AS A DISMEMBERED HAWK. Perhaps Applegate and the ghostwriters of Animorphs ought to take some sensitivity courses before acting as though blindness is a fate worse than death.
Rachel's father is left as a dangling unknown. They didn't go after him and bring him to safety; Rachel simply said he would find his way there and they didn't follow up on it.
July 30, 2022
The parents are involved and we’re on the verge if the war’s climax.
With the central focus being a soap opera-esque installment on Tobias’ long lost mother, we also face an increase in close calls.
I do, however, deeply resent the use of the Magical Healing Trope in this and so i can’t rate it very highly because of it. Lazy and pathetic beyond belief.
Applegate has a weird thing with disability.
CW: war, violence, death, grief, slavery, murder, parental abandonment, ableism
With the central focus being a soap opera-esque installment on Tobias’ long lost mother, we also face an increase in close calls.
I do, however, deeply resent the use of the Magical Healing Trope in this and so i can’t rate it very highly because of it. Lazy and pathetic beyond belief.
Applegate has a weird thing with disability.
CW: war, violence, death, grief, slavery, murder, parental abandonment, ableism
April 18, 2019
This is inches from perfect, so it pains me that it mishandles the disability issue. Let disabled characters remain disabled! Cognitive impairments are still disabilities, but the general thrust here of the pious cripple who, when given the opportunity, would rather die in morph than return to a disabled body, is ... well, it's awful. Not the first or last look at disability in the series; it has good intentions, does some things right, but also feels in desperate need of a sensitivity reader.
The beginning is also a slow burn of boy-bird angst, despite some great Rachel/Tobias scenes.
But from the 25% mark onwards, this is captivating. (I read the bulk of this in the awkward position I assumed to read "just a few pages"--which morphed into the entire book.) It continues from The Revelation (Book 45), with further concrete, significant changes. Parents who have had minor bit parts before become significantly more real as they become part of the plot, again throwing into relief the bizarre, imbalanced, unfair position of the Animorph kids. Jake made me tear up, but his predicament is more frustrating than sentimental--it's a sympathetic rage, not a shallow tear-jerker. And I consistently love Tobias books despite that his angst, for all its complicated origins, is heavy-handed and familiar; this is somewhat more of the same, but rendered in precise, human detail (as he grows jealous while watching Loren pet her guide dog) that it feels fresh, and events here lead to significant character growth--Tobias is motivated and personally invested in a way we haven't seen before.
The emotional core is solid, an incredible amount happens, and even the huge action sequences are tempered by competence porn and justified by the ongoing escalation of scale as the war breaks out into the open. I love this--I just wish I could love it unreservedly.
The beginning is also a slow burn of boy-bird angst, despite some great Rachel/Tobias scenes.
But from the 25% mark onwards, this is captivating. (I read the bulk of this in the awkward position I assumed to read "just a few pages"--which morphed into the entire book.) It continues from The Revelation (Book 45), with further concrete, significant changes. Parents who have had minor bit parts before become significantly more real as they become part of the plot, again throwing into relief the bizarre, imbalanced, unfair position of the Animorph kids. Jake made me tear up, but his predicament is more frustrating than sentimental--it's a sympathetic rage, not a shallow tear-jerker. And I consistently love Tobias books despite that his angst, for all its complicated origins, is heavy-handed and familiar; this is somewhat more of the same, but rendered in precise, human detail (as he grows jealous while watching Loren pet her guide dog) that it feels fresh, and events here lead to significant character growth--Tobias is motivated and personally invested in a way we haven't seen before.
The emotional core is solid, an incredible amount happens, and even the huge action sequences are tempered by competence porn and justified by the ongoing escalation of scale as the war breaks out into the open. I love this--I just wish I could love it unreservedly.
December 6, 2022
This was great! What I've been craving in the last few Animorphs books! A nice character piece, this time on Tobias but actually moving the overall plot forward. The Yeerks have discovered the bandits may be human and have been testing the blood samples for animal DNA. Of course this means the teens have to save their families before it's too late. It was emotional for both Tobias whom I've missed as narrator and for Jake, the leader making the tough decisions. Everything's changed with this one and I'm eager to finish now that the end goal is in line.
June 2, 2024
The secret is out, the yeerks know the animorphs are human.
Thus ensues a rapid fire extraction of their families to safety. Cassie and Rachel’s family safely escape, but Jake’s family becomes controllers. And lemme tell you, the sadness that boy must have felt when the opportunity to save his brother finally comes and he can’t do it 💔 But surprise surprise, turns out Tobias’s mother is alive. Obviously he finds this out and hits us with the “oh yes makes sense that she lived 8 blocks down and I didn’t know, nobody in my family loves me anyway” and I sobbed. But turns out when he was a baby she got in a car wreck leaving her without memory and blind, so like fair that you don’t want this baby. So he gotta save her, and everyone rallies to do it and just 🥹🥹 So they get her out by giving her morphing power and she becomes a hawk like her son 🪶 and during the escape Tobias is about to get blasted and she throws herself in front of him and thinks back to how Cassie’s mom and Rachel’s mom both threw themselves in front of their daughter when they thought they were endanger. AND THIS BOY THINKS “wow, so I really do have a mom that loves me” and I ceased to exist after that. BUT THEN she morphs back to human, and what does morphing do? FIXES YOUR BODY. So she could see again, and she just stared and stared at her service dog and her son and I just cried and cried and cried.
#HappyEndgameTimes
Thus ensues a rapid fire extraction of their families to safety. Cassie and Rachel’s family safely escape, but Jake’s family becomes controllers. And lemme tell you, the sadness that boy must have felt when the opportunity to save his brother finally comes and he can’t do it 💔 But surprise surprise, turns out Tobias’s mother is alive. Obviously he finds this out and hits us with the “oh yes makes sense that she lived 8 blocks down and I didn’t know, nobody in my family loves me anyway” and I sobbed. But turns out when he was a baby she got in a car wreck leaving her without memory and blind, so like fair that you don’t want this baby. So he gotta save her, and everyone rallies to do it and just 🥹🥹 So they get her out by giving her morphing power and she becomes a hawk like her son 🪶 and during the escape Tobias is about to get blasted and she throws herself in front of him and thinks back to how Cassie’s mom and Rachel’s mom both threw themselves in front of their daughter when they thought they were endanger. AND THIS BOY THINKS “wow, so I really do have a mom that loves me” and I ceased to exist after that. BUT THEN she morphs back to human, and what does morphing do? FIXES YOUR BODY. So she could see again, and she just stared and stared at her service dog and her son and I just cried and cried and cried.
#HappyEndgameTimes
May 9, 2023
I really don't like how Applegate wrote Tobias' mom's experience of restored sight. After more than a decade of very little sight, it would be completely overwhelming to suddenly have the visual acuity of a hawk--and to be a sighted person upon morphing back to human. I also really didn't like how it's written in this tone of, "of course a blind person wants to be able to see!"
Also the distractibility of her service dog seemed like poor research. A service dog can't be so easily led away from their handler when they're working. The morphed dog would have been intact, and harder to control, like the time the kids morphed into intact bulls after aquiring steer.
Things Applegate wrote well: the neatness of Loren's house, and how Loren was able to find her groceries in the store.
Also the distractibility of her service dog seemed like poor research. A service dog can't be so easily led away from their handler when they're working. The morphed dog would have been intact, and harder to control, like the time the kids morphed into intact bulls after aquiring steer.
Things Applegate wrote well: the neatness of Loren's house, and how Loren was able to find her groceries in the store.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 8, 2017
YES.
This is what I've been waiting for! We're MOVING again, and fast. The Yeerks have finally figured out the Animorphs are human, and that means it is go time for getting their families out of harms way. I like that this isn't clear sailing. That it isn't easy for them at all at any turn. And the way Tobias's story fits into this greater issue is perfection.
Can't wait to dive into the next book!
This is what I've been waiting for! We're MOVING again, and fast. The Yeerks have finally figured out the Animorphs are human, and that means it is go time for getting their families out of harms way. I like that this isn't clear sailing. That it isn't easy for them at all at any turn. And the way Tobias's story fits into this greater issue is perfection.
Can't wait to dive into the next book!
January 31, 2023
I'll admit it, I'm very biased. If this had been centered around any other character, it probably would've been a 2 star read. But it's Tobias guys, I'll never be able to fully dislike a Tobias book. We see Applegate magic away disabilities with alien tech again, which I really don't like, considering how well she tackled a lot of the themes in this series. It's telling of what her stance is. Loren makes an appearance, and for once Tobias is able to feel a semblance of happiness.
January 28, 2016
In possibly the longest non-Chronicles/Megamorphs installment in the series, the war is taking a hard turn. After all the close calls, all the “security breaches” recently, the Yeerks are finally wising up and considering that the “Andalite bandits” might be humans instead. The Sharing is sponsoring a blood drive – and we all know how much bleeding the Animorphs have done over the course of their many battles with the Yeerks. While they have done the bleeding as animals, their human DNA still floats around when they are in morph, and the Yeerks are trying to match it to discover who they are.
They infiltrate the Yeerk blood bank, and they find that the Yeerks have already found a strong correlation between one of the Animorphs and a family. Two guesses which Animorph, and which family. This very point is also a key factor in why I am giving this book only 4.5 stars (rounded down) instead of the 5 I wish I could give it.
We also get more glimpses of Tobias’ unique “hawk” problems, like another drought drying up his meadow and his food supply, and how Rachel pays visits to hang out and to help him out. Despite the very sweet moments between them and how Rachel has finally come to understand and respect Tobias’ decision to remain a hawk, and as weird as it seems to me, I am not as on-board with the Tobias/Rachel relationship as I used to be. They make a cute couple, and they have some really nice moments together, but they don’t feel quite as “right” to me for some reason. I think I might even have one foot on board the Marco/Rachel ship at this point… (Sorry, Tobias…)
Because now I had the one goal Jake had always had.
And thought, not for the first time, about the irony of my hunt. In my old life, my life as a boy, I was the mouse. The prey. Stalked by predators bent on flushing my head down the men’s room toilet. Scurrying to find a hiding place. Rarely succeeding.
Another irony: In my old life, my life as prey, food was not a problem. I was on the free lunch program at school. So I knew exactly where my next meal was coming from. Overheated ladies in hair nets slapped it on a tray and handed it to me. – page 2
Rachel was bringing McDonald’s. Rachel, my own personal cafeteria-lady-in-a-hair-net.
Don’t ever tell her I said that. – page 6 – Haha!
“I know you have to eat yours as a hawk.” – page 8 – Ah, that answers that question without a doubt, about if what they eat in morph has any value to them when they demorph. Also, I love Tobias’ reminiscences on the next page about the taste of hamburger and fries and how he tells himself to get a grip, he’s turning into Ax.
We sat side by side in the grass with our backs against the tree. I bit into my Big Mac. And sighed. Well, actually I moaned. Out loud. Grease and cheese and special sauce dribbled down my chin.
Rachel shook her head and handed me a napkin.
Which would’ve been embarrassing if I hadn’t been so involved in my lunch. Sometimes I forget normal human things. Like my old locker combination or which months have thirty-one days or how to work the token machine at the arcade. Useless information to a hawk, of course. Still, it scared me a little. Like I’d crossed a line and might not ever get back. Or worse, I’d forget so many things that given the opportunity, I might not want to get back.
But I hadn’t forgotten the Big Mac. Or the fries. As long as I had fast food, I had hope. – page 11 – Neverminding that it seemed he had already come to terms with forgetting so many human things beginning back in book oh, 13 or so. Though it is good that Tobias does still harbor fears about never “getting back” – goes back to how even as you move forward in life, the same issues can keep coming up, just in different lights. And his reaction to eating the Big Mac? Priceless.
[After getting shot at by a cross-bow wielding suburbanite] But it was my own fault. I knew not to hunt in human territory. In somebody’s backyard! It was a stupid mistake. A mistake a real hawk wouldn’t have made.
But Tobias the hawk hadn’t made the mistake. Tobias the boy had. I’d seen the snake, and my human brain took it as a dare. A snake had stolen my lunch, and now I was stealing it back.
My human brain was going to get my hawk body in big trouble one of these days. – page 26 – Tobias, you can hunt in my back yard ANY day!
[Jake outlines the plan where Rachel as an elephant creates a diversion and then slips away among the circus elephants to demorph.]
“And then?” [Jake prompted Rachel.]
< Then? > She swished her rope-thin tail.
Jake sighed. “Then mingle into the crowd, do not call attention to yourself, and wait patiently for the rest of us.”
< Wait patiently. Right. > She saluted him with her trunk. < I can do that. >
Marco looked at me. “She. Cannot. Do. That.”
< No, > I said. < Probably not. > -- page 33
[Rachel slammed] the Dumpster into the concrete wall! Backed up and squashed the trunk of a BMW parked at the curb.
< You’ve made her a very happy pachyderm, > I told Jake. < It’s been weeks since her last car-stomping. > -- page 35
Continued (again) in the comments...
They infiltrate the Yeerk blood bank, and they find that the Yeerks have already found a strong correlation between one of the Animorphs and a family. Two guesses which Animorph, and which family. This very point is also a key factor in why I am giving this book only 4.5 stars (rounded down) instead of the 5 I wish I could give it.
We also get more glimpses of Tobias’ unique “hawk” problems, like another drought drying up his meadow and his food supply, and how Rachel pays visits to hang out and to help him out. Despite the very sweet moments between them and how Rachel has finally come to understand and respect Tobias’ decision to remain a hawk, and as weird as it seems to me, I am not as on-board with the Tobias/Rachel relationship as I used to be. They make a cute couple, and they have some really nice moments together, but they don’t feel quite as “right” to me for some reason. I think I might even have one foot on board the Marco/Rachel ship at this point… (Sorry, Tobias…)
Because now I had the one goal Jake had always had.
And thought, not for the first time, about the irony of my hunt. In my old life, my life as a boy, I was the mouse. The prey. Stalked by predators bent on flushing my head down the men’s room toilet. Scurrying to find a hiding place. Rarely succeeding.
Another irony: In my old life, my life as prey, food was not a problem. I was on the free lunch program at school. So I knew exactly where my next meal was coming from. Overheated ladies in hair nets slapped it on a tray and handed it to me. – page 2
Rachel was bringing McDonald’s. Rachel, my own personal cafeteria-lady-in-a-hair-net.
Don’t ever tell her I said that. – page 6 – Haha!
“I know you have to eat yours as a hawk.” – page 8 – Ah, that answers that question without a doubt, about if what they eat in morph has any value to them when they demorph. Also, I love Tobias’ reminiscences on the next page about the taste of hamburger and fries and how he tells himself to get a grip, he’s turning into Ax.
We sat side by side in the grass with our backs against the tree. I bit into my Big Mac. And sighed. Well, actually I moaned. Out loud. Grease and cheese and special sauce dribbled down my chin.
Rachel shook her head and handed me a napkin.
Which would’ve been embarrassing if I hadn’t been so involved in my lunch. Sometimes I forget normal human things. Like my old locker combination or which months have thirty-one days or how to work the token machine at the arcade. Useless information to a hawk, of course. Still, it scared me a little. Like I’d crossed a line and might not ever get back. Or worse, I’d forget so many things that given the opportunity, I might not want to get back.
But I hadn’t forgotten the Big Mac. Or the fries. As long as I had fast food, I had hope. – page 11 – Neverminding that it seemed he had already come to terms with forgetting so many human things beginning back in book oh, 13 or so. Though it is good that Tobias does still harbor fears about never “getting back” – goes back to how even as you move forward in life, the same issues can keep coming up, just in different lights. And his reaction to eating the Big Mac? Priceless.
[After getting shot at by a cross-bow wielding suburbanite] But it was my own fault. I knew not to hunt in human territory. In somebody’s backyard! It was a stupid mistake. A mistake a real hawk wouldn’t have made.
But Tobias the hawk hadn’t made the mistake. Tobias the boy had. I’d seen the snake, and my human brain took it as a dare. A snake had stolen my lunch, and now I was stealing it back.
My human brain was going to get my hawk body in big trouble one of these days. – page 26 – Tobias, you can hunt in my back yard ANY day!
[Jake outlines the plan where Rachel as an elephant creates a diversion and then slips away among the circus elephants to demorph.]
“And then?” [Jake prompted Rachel.]
< Then? > She swished her rope-thin tail.
Jake sighed. “Then mingle into the crowd, do not call attention to yourself, and wait patiently for the rest of us.”
< Wait patiently. Right. > She saluted him with her trunk. < I can do that. >
Marco looked at me. “She. Cannot. Do. That.”
< No, > I said. < Probably not. > -- page 33
[Rachel slammed] the Dumpster into the concrete wall! Backed up and squashed the trunk of a BMW parked at the curb.
< You’ve made her a very happy pachyderm, > I told Jake. < It’s been weeks since her last car-stomping. > -- page 35
Continued (again) in the comments...
April 28, 2022
As we dwindle towards the end, we get the last full outing with our favorite emo bird boy, Tobias. Oh man this one is a lot. The ghostwrote is Lisa Harkraider, who did The Unexpected. There her work as very bare minimum, being fair but nothing special. Here she's better, it helps the story gives her much more work with. There's some repetitive musings on irony and not as much vocab stuff, but it sinks into the introspective stuff as well, although the action is a little more mixed, perhaps a bit too hectic at times. Still, she does pretty well.
But side note, while the last few books either ditched or toned down the recap stuff, this has more of it. It's weird as this is the writer's 2nd one, and frankly we have no need for this 49 books in. Anyway...
The plot is a bit hard to explain. Basically, they find out the Yeerks are starting to figure who these Andalite Bandits truly are via blood samples or something, so they head out to find out more on what they know. After that goes south, they decide they have to tell all their parent about all this and relocate them. Basically it's The Revelation 2.0 but on a bigger scale. `And at the same time, Tobias finds out his mom is alive.
Yeah, this one ends up having a lot to process, it's mostly rather breakneck with a lot of the action that has to be mixed with the emotions. Honestly, this one was a low key a mess. I don't think I quite absorbed it all, and it doesn't quite come together as cohesively as it should have. It's a shame as there's so much to like here.
I like seeing shit really hit the fan as the status qou totally shatters, it's a longer one so it gets more time to show off a lot. The ending moments work well as a few roles swap and we get a rather bittwesweet ending. Tobias gets some decent musings, and it has gut punches. Plus, it has some of the funniest Ax stuff at one point.
Despite being 160 pages, it feels kind rushed though. It feels two different books smashed together. It's only truly one quarter a Tobias book. For the most part, it's only one cuz it's his turn to narrate. The thing with Mom ties into how they want to relocate all their parents but a lot of the handling felt wonky to me. For spoiler reasons it's hard to say but basically the short version is Andalite Chronicles revealed Elfangor is Tobias' father, and he had him with a human woman he had a thing with.
Yeah another twist I've been keeping secret had to said, it fits the book I guess. Anyway, with how that book ended, I hadn't thought of Loren, the mom, and this makes me wonder why it wasn't thought of before actually, but I don't recall how much Tobias found out back in The Pretender. Either way they reveal a thing about her that is just weird given where we left out with her and it didn't feel needed. One aspect was truly just an odd addition especially given where they go with it.
It could just be more, it was hard to process a lot of it but I felt there was wonky stuff from the get go with this portion. It leads to some lovely stuff though, and the interesting role reversal at he end. It just feels kind of forced in a few ways.
Character wise,I'm glad this isn't the usual Tobias shtick, but I don't this truly closes off his arc that deeply besides getting his mommy back. That's something, it just didn't quite fit as well as for his book compared to how Rachel's final book was for her. Maybe we should have finished things off with Taylor instead, just saying.
Honestly, Jake gets more deeper stuff here. Things happens with him as he eventually ends up in a postio0n that changes him for good. This should have been a Jake book, this was a deeper look at him than the civil war book was. It's all weird.
There's a lot of good stuff here, we truly see how everything changes in a lot of ways, th9is should have been great. But by having to juggle these two major things. they don't quite work together fully. This will be hard to rank. I know this will likely be a me thing to an extent, but I felt this struggled more than The Revelation did.
Overall, as the final Tobias book and the next step to the end, there's a lot of great concepts in here but it struggles to make it totally work a coherent whole. I largely liked it just for having these things that I like seeing in the series, but the Loren stuff alone was an odd misstep that could have been better handled.
Still, it is what it is. The note it ends on shows that things are different and there's no going back. Next time, it's Cassie turn to take a final bow as we see how the group goes from here. It'll be the big 50 so hopefully it'll be wild. See ya then.
(BTW, there's a fair few Nick mentions here, including of CatDog. That amused me for some reason)
But side note, while the last few books either ditched or toned down the recap stuff, this has more of it. It's weird as this is the writer's 2nd one, and frankly we have no need for this 49 books in. Anyway...
The plot is a bit hard to explain. Basically, they find out the Yeerks are starting to figure who these Andalite Bandits truly are via blood samples or something, so they head out to find out more on what they know. After that goes south, they decide they have to tell all their parent about all this and relocate them. Basically it's The Revelation 2.0 but on a bigger scale. `And at the same time, Tobias finds out his mom is alive.
Yeah, this one ends up having a lot to process, it's mostly rather breakneck with a lot of the action that has to be mixed with the emotions. Honestly, this one was a low key a mess. I don't think I quite absorbed it all, and it doesn't quite come together as cohesively as it should have. It's a shame as there's so much to like here.
I like seeing shit really hit the fan as the status qou totally shatters, it's a longer one so it gets more time to show off a lot. The ending moments work well as a few roles swap and we get a rather bittwesweet ending. Tobias gets some decent musings, and it has gut punches. Plus, it has some of the funniest Ax stuff at one point.
Despite being 160 pages, it feels kind rushed though. It feels two different books smashed together. It's only truly one quarter a Tobias book. For the most part, it's only one cuz it's his turn to narrate. The thing with Mom ties into how they want to relocate all their parents but a lot of the handling felt wonky to me. For spoiler reasons it's hard to say but basically the short version is Andalite Chronicles revealed Elfangor is Tobias' father, and he had him with a human woman he had a thing with.
Yeah another twist I've been keeping secret had to said, it fits the book I guess. Anyway, with how that book ended, I hadn't thought of Loren, the mom, and this makes me wonder why it wasn't thought of before actually, but I don't recall how much Tobias found out back in The Pretender. Either way they reveal a thing about her that is just weird given where we left out with her and it didn't feel needed. One aspect was truly just an odd addition especially given where they go with it.
It could just be more, it was hard to process a lot of it but I felt there was wonky stuff from the get go with this portion. It leads to some lovely stuff though, and the interesting role reversal at he end. It just feels kind of forced in a few ways.
Character wise,I'm glad this isn't the usual Tobias shtick, but I don't this truly closes off his arc that deeply besides getting his mommy back. That's something, it just didn't quite fit as well as for his book compared to how Rachel's final book was for her. Maybe we should have finished things off with Taylor instead, just saying.
Honestly, Jake gets more deeper stuff here. Things happens with him as he eventually ends up in a postio0n that changes him for good. This should have been a Jake book, this was a deeper look at him than the civil war book was. It's all weird.
There's a lot of good stuff here, we truly see how everything changes in a lot of ways, th9is should have been great. But by having to juggle these two major things. they don't quite work together fully. This will be hard to rank. I know this will likely be a me thing to an extent, but I felt this struggled more than The Revelation did.
Overall, as the final Tobias book and the next step to the end, there's a lot of great concepts in here but it struggles to make it totally work a coherent whole. I largely liked it just for having these things that I like seeing in the series, but the Loren stuff alone was an odd misstep that could have been better handled.
Still, it is what it is. The note it ends on shows that things are different and there's no going back. Next time, it's Cassie turn to take a final bow as we see how the group goes from here. It'll be the big 50 so hopefully it'll be wild. See ya then.
(BTW, there's a fair few Nick mentions here, including of CatDog. That amused me for some reason)
December 18, 2020
Original Review at Jaunts & Haunts
4.5/5
I gave this book four and a half stars!
This installment of the Animorphs series is in Tobias's POV. The Animorphs learn that the Yeerks may know that they are human now, and could be tracking them down using blood samples. Springing into action, the Animorphs learn just how much danger they are in. Can they find a way to evade the Yeerks, or will they die trying?
Oh. My. GOD! This book was so great! Once I hit the 50% mark I had to finish it in one go, and afterwards I set the book down and just stared into space thinking on what I just read. That's how great this was.
Tobias's character was portrayed very well this time. His actions, concerns, and emotions make sense, especially with what happens a bit later in the book (I can't tell you!). Let me just say that it is big. I also found that the other Animorphs stuck to their characters extremely well in their dialogue and reactions to the chaos around them. Rachel, Marco, Jake, Ax, Cassie, all handled extremely well.
The plot starts off seemingly simple. They think the Yeerks are on to the fact that they are indeed humans and are trying to track them using samples of their blood from previous battles. Maybe I read the blurb wrong, but the plot's stakes totally blew me away. Things shift just under halfway (again, can't tell you. It's too big), and it sent chills up my spine that huge irreversible things were happening again and there was no going back. The action was there 100%, and I blazed through this book in no time because I feel that readers have been waiting for this moment in the series for a long time. And it's finally here. It's finally here! Let that sink in. The end of the series is coming, and it's going to be huge!
I did notice a few small inconsistencies but other than that I have zero complaints. This book is by far one of the most memorable ones in the series, and I am more inspired than ever to finish the series. Expertly done and well worth a read.
4.5/5
I gave this book four and a half stars!
This installment of the Animorphs series is in Tobias's POV. The Animorphs learn that the Yeerks may know that they are human now, and could be tracking them down using blood samples. Springing into action, the Animorphs learn just how much danger they are in. Can they find a way to evade the Yeerks, or will they die trying?
Oh. My. GOD! This book was so great! Once I hit the 50% mark I had to finish it in one go, and afterwards I set the book down and just stared into space thinking on what I just read. That's how great this was.
Tobias's character was portrayed very well this time. His actions, concerns, and emotions make sense, especially with what happens a bit later in the book (I can't tell you!). Let me just say that it is big. I also found that the other Animorphs stuck to their characters extremely well in their dialogue and reactions to the chaos around them. Rachel, Marco, Jake, Ax, Cassie, all handled extremely well.
The plot starts off seemingly simple. They think the Yeerks are on to the fact that they are indeed humans and are trying to track them using samples of their blood from previous battles. Maybe I read the blurb wrong, but the plot's stakes totally blew me away. Things shift just under halfway (again, can't tell you. It's too big), and it sent chills up my spine that huge irreversible things were happening again and there was no going back. The action was there 100%, and I blazed through this book in no time because I feel that readers have been waiting for this moment in the series for a long time. And it's finally here. It's finally here! Let that sink in. The end of the series is coming, and it's going to be huge!
I did notice a few small inconsistencies but other than that I have zero complaints. This book is by far one of the most memorable ones in the series, and I am more inspired than ever to finish the series. Expertly done and well worth a read.
December 13, 2020
Let me just say that every Tobias book is a banger. There’s no fluff. No trips to Australia, no Andalite toilets... only stories that matter.
It turns out that the Yeerks have realizes the blood the Animorphs are leaking all over their many battles contains human DNA, so they’re logging their DNA into a blood bank system in the hopes of finding a match and figuring out who they are. I’d never thought that this could be a possibility, but hey, I guess it tracks. Anyway, they go on a covert mission to learn more, they discover that the system has found Tobias’ mother (who Tobias has never known) as a partial match, and of course their mission goes south and they bleed all over the place, meaning if the Yeerks didn’t have all of their blood, the definitely do now. It dawns on them that mayyyybe they better get their families into hiding at this point. Yeah!!!
They grab Cassie’s family, and then Rachel’s, but they’re too slow to get Jake’s. Poor Jake.
Meanwhile, Tobias is determined to save his mom, because he really has no family who cares about him. And he manages to do so through some tricky work with her service dog and by giving her the morphing power so she can escape as a bird. She had been blind (from a car accident, which cause total amnesia in which she couldn’t remember Tobias at all, hence why she never tried to take him back from her siblings who took care of him- she only knew about him via what they told her), but when she demoted, voila- she can see!
Morphing technology, man- it can fix all the physical ailments, I guess! I wonder if I can handle aging?
Anyway, all the Animorphs families, save for Jake (and Ax, obvs) are hiding in the Hork Bajir valley. IT’S GOING DOWN Y’ALL!
It turns out that the Yeerks have realizes the blood the Animorphs are leaking all over their many battles contains human DNA, so they’re logging their DNA into a blood bank system in the hopes of finding a match and figuring out who they are. I’d never thought that this could be a possibility, but hey, I guess it tracks. Anyway, they go on a covert mission to learn more, they discover that the system has found Tobias’ mother (who Tobias has never known) as a partial match, and of course their mission goes south and they bleed all over the place, meaning if the Yeerks didn’t have all of their blood, the definitely do now. It dawns on them that mayyyybe they better get their families into hiding at this point. Yeah!!!
They grab Cassie’s family, and then Rachel’s, but they’re too slow to get Jake’s. Poor Jake.
Meanwhile, Tobias is determined to save his mom, because he really has no family who cares about him. And he manages to do so through some tricky work with her service dog and by giving her the morphing power so she can escape as a bird. She had been blind (from a car accident, which cause total amnesia in which she couldn’t remember Tobias at all, hence why she never tried to take him back from her siblings who took care of him- she only knew about him via what they told her), but when she demoted, voila- she can see!
Morphing technology, man- it can fix all the physical ailments, I guess! I wonder if I can handle aging?
Anyway, all the Animorphs families, save for Jake (and Ax, obvs) are hiding in the Hork Bajir valley. IT’S GOING DOWN Y’ALL!
December 11, 2022
GOD TIER TOBIAS BOOK
We got so much in this one. I am really stressed as we get to the end of the series. This book had a good sense of urgency while also taking the time it needed to make me invest in the families of the animorphs. I really appreciated the responses we got from each of them.
I love the shift Tobias goes thru from the first chapter to the last. He started off feeling bad about himself, not hunting well, and all around feeling needy. However, by the end he’s saved his family, led a mission pretty well, AND GAVE US A NEW ANIMORPH?!? I think there’s something to be said about his newfound comfort with his human body when his mom is safe. We’re able to face parts of ourselves we maybe hated in the past, because the people in our lives are there to remind us how far we’ve come. He also just really handled his emotions so well i’m this book. I hated seeing Jake lose everything, but seeing their different reactions is really telling of how this war has taken a toll on Jake.
Overall this is the best thing to happen to Tobias since he kissed Rachel. And It’s def one of my fav animorphs books.
We got so much in this one. I am really stressed as we get to the end of the series. This book had a good sense of urgency while also taking the time it needed to make me invest in the families of the animorphs. I really appreciated the responses we got from each of them.
I love the shift Tobias goes thru from the first chapter to the last. He started off feeling bad about himself, not hunting well, and all around feeling needy. However, by the end he’s saved his family, led a mission pretty well, AND GAVE US A NEW ANIMORPH?!? I think there’s something to be said about his newfound comfort with his human body when his mom is safe. We’re able to face parts of ourselves we maybe hated in the past, because the people in our lives are there to remind us how far we’ve come. He also just really handled his emotions so well i’m this book. I hated seeing Jake lose everything, but seeing their different reactions is really telling of how this war has taken a toll on Jake.
Overall this is the best thing to happen to Tobias since he kissed Rachel. And It’s def one of my fav animorphs books.
September 28, 2021
SPOILER WARNING
It was great to see Tobias finally get a happy ending, at least as happy endings get in this series. He finds and saves his mother and even though she doesn't remember him, you can tell that they are rebuilding that bond that was lost far too long. Didn't she it coming that she would get morphing abilities, that was a nice surprise. Great book!
Heart breaking about Makes family though, you know that's going to play a big part moving forward.
It was great to see Tobias finally get a happy ending, at least as happy endings get in this series. He finds and saves his mother and even though she doesn't remember him, you can tell that they are rebuilding that bond that was lost far too long. Didn't she it coming that she would get morphing abilities, that was a nice surprise. Great book!
Heart breaking about Makes family though, you know that's going to play a big part moving forward.
May 10, 2023
Ho. Ly. Shit. Tobias' stories are always a caliber above the rest, but this one stands out for multiple reasons. Things we've been wanting or even just wondering about since the start of the series are finally acknowledged and answered in the most fulfilling way possible. And on the larger scale, the drive towards the end of the series is compelling and exciting from start to finish. The whole game is changing, and it's a thrill to watch. 10/10
June 29, 2022
This was AMAZING. Such a perfect installment in Tobias's family struggles, especially with the comparisons between him and Jake (and how calm and focused they both could be when fighting for their families). And it played with Tobias's feelings as an outsider in a new way (the jealousy he felt for Champ, for example). It wasn't wrapped up neatly, but things did change.
July 25, 2021
This
This has got to be in my top-five favorite Ani books. What a ride...
This has got to be in my top-five favorite Ani books. What a ride...
May 18, 2023
Man…….
June 28, 2023
This was great! Tense, exciting, heartbreaking. Discussed disability in a way that’s not super chill. The way endgame approaches is killing me!!!
August 14, 2023
This one is so good. It would be perfect if not for the ableist bits. In my feelings. As usual.
January 5, 2025
This book changes everything!
May 28, 2025
everything i wanted it to be and so so SO much more :') ♡ ♡ ♡ everything is coming to fruition and i am terrified !!!!!!!!!!!!
October 31, 2023
(originally reviewed at
thelibraryladies.com
)
Narrator: Tobias
Plot: The last Tobias book! Sadness! And, per the usual for his books, there’s a healthy dose of tragedy here as well. Though, in a shocking turn of events, by the end, a good thing has actually happened to him!
Tobias is experience his typical woes: the challenges of the hawk life with regards to getting food. While things aren’t as desperate as they have been in the past, he’s still happy to see Rachel show up with McDonalds. He eats part of it as a hawk, the only way the calories will sustain him, but morphs human to enjoy the rest as a boy who can appreciate taste. After that, they head off to Cassie’s barn for a group meeting.
There, Cassie informs them that her parents came back with odd news from The Gardens, that people had been there requesting blood samples from very specific animals, like wolves, grizzly bears, tigers, gorillas, etc. They were particularly upset when they discovered the zoo didn’t have a red tailed hawk in residence. The Animorphs are quick to put this together: the Yeerks are on to the fact that the “Andalite bandits” might be more than they seem and are collecting blood samples to try and match any humans with morphing abilities. They all try to recollect if they’ve had blood drawn recently, and Rachel is the only one with a concern that back when they all had the Andalite flu, her mom took her to the hospital and they may have drawn blood then.
They agree that the chance is too great, and Marco and Ax are set with the task of locating the blood bank where all of the samples are being stored and tested. By the next day they’ve already discovered the facility and the Animorphs are quick to take off to investigate. Once there, they come up across the typical problem now of Biofilters at all of the entrances. They decide to use their Hork Bajir morphs and tie blue armbands around their arms to pose as the elite Hork Bajir fighters they’ve recently come up across. Using this “authority,” they are able to weasel their way into the facility and get to the computer system. Ax demorphs and investigates and finds that the Yeerks already have a partial match and it’s Tobias’s lost mother who, it turns out, has been living only a few blocks away from the neglectful uncle whom Tobias stayed with when he was a boy.
Controllers break into the room, including a Granny-like Controller who seems to be in charge. She sees the flashing light on the computer and realizes that the system had found a match. A fight breaks out and the Animorphs flee the facility, but Marco is critically injured in the fight, forcing him to demorph and confirm the fact that there are humans with morphing abilities.
They manage to get away but know that now that Marco has been spotted, the game is up for them all, the Controllers will quickly put together who the other members could be. At the barn, the reality really begins to set in with what it will mean to tell their families and hide them away with the free Hork Bajir. Jake tells them all to take the night to think about it and they’ll begin the next day.
In the mean time, Tobias goes to scout out his mother. He discovers that she is blind and scarred, but she’s also kind to her guide dog and doesn’t show any outward signs of being a Controller. Having been fooled by a tactic like this in the past, Tobias is still wary. He’s also hurt and confused by why she would give him up only to live so close by.
They start with Cassie’s family whom Cassie says are scientist and will respect the truth. Tobias flies in and begins thought-speaking to Cassie’s mother while Cassie begins telling her what is going on. When Ax appears, Cassie’s mom tries to hide Cassie behind her in case Ax is dangerous. Cassie’s dad arrives and they explain to him too. The Chee agree to watch over the remaining animals at the barn clinic, and Cassie and her family pack up and head out.
Rachel’s family is next. Rachel morphs grizzly and speaks to her mom, who naturally freaks out. Ax walks in with one of Rachel’s little sisters on his back. Rachel’s mom grabs a spice rack and lunges at grizzly!Rachel. Like with Cassie’s mom, Tobias is struck with the bravery of mothers protecting their children. Rachel wrangles her family out, and the remaining Animorphs take off for Jake’s house.
They arrive to discover that Tom went with Jake’s parents to do chores. As the time ticks by, Marco and Tobias become increasingly concerned and Jake finally begins to admit that it is strange for Tom, a high ranking Yeerk, to go on a random chore run that morning. When they spot Jake’s family returning, but they are followed by two black SUVs. Through the window, Tobias can see Jake’s mom’s face twisted with anger and in her hand, a Dracon beam. They retreat.
Later, Tobias takes off to spy on Loren once again and sees that she is under Yeerk surveillance. While he’s there, Marco and Ax show up saying that the guide dog is Tobias’s way in. They follow Loren into a grocery store and, while posing as “rowdy youth”, they steal Loren’s guide dog and have Tobias acquire it. Tobais then returns in in place of the dog and makes his way back to Loren’s house with her. After she goes to sleep, Tobias searches the house but finds no evidence that Loren is a Controller. He does find a letter from an insurance company that mentions the fact that Loren lost her memories in the accident that scarred and blinded her.
The next morning, in his human form, Tobias confronts his mother. He learns that she knew she had a son, but had no memory of him. Worse, her memory was so badly damanged that she had had to re-learn how to do basic functions like brush her teeth. This all being the case, she had chosen to give him up as a baby to relatives, hoping that he would have a better life that way. As Tobias begins to explain the danger that she is in, it becomes clear that Loren has very vague memories of aliens, specifically Elfangor. Using these glimpses of shared knowledge, Tobias convinces her to stay in her house for three days and then meet him in a nearby park.
After the days have past and Loren hasn’t left the house, proving that she isn’t a Controller, they put the plan in action. When Loren gets to the park, she enters a tunnel and the Animorphs are able to switch out her dog for dog!Tobias once again without alerting the Controllers who are following her. Back in her house, with very little time as the Yeerks close in, Tobias has her keep her hand on his face while he demorphs. He then has her use the blue box to get morphing abilities, acquire his hawk form, and begin to morph herself. She manages to complete the morph right when things get crazy. The other Animorphs arrives as back up, but granny!Controller his back and in a helicopter.
Tobias and hawk!Loren take the sky and give the helicopter quite a chase. Tobias lures the helicopter away with his mad flying skills, but is almost hit by a Dracon beam shot, only saved by Loren flinging herself in front of him and taking a hard hit herself. The helicopter goes down and Loren demorphs to heal her injuries. Her blindness also heals in the process.
Back in the valley, all of the families are beginning to settle in. The Hork Bajir love Cassie’s parents and Rachel’s lawyer mother is helping them draft their own Constitution. Tobias is getting to know his mother, and while he’s sad that she still has no memory of him, he is comforted by the thought that when it came down to it, like Rachel and Cassie’s mothers, his own mother had tried to save her son as well.
A Hawk’s Life: Most of Tobias’s books have to do with his struggle for identity between his life as a boy and his life as a hawk. But there is only brief point in the beginning where he again confronts the challenges of eating as a hawk, amusingly noting that Marco would have no problem living in his girlfriend’s room being hand fed, Tobias can’t let himself do that, even though Rachel has offered. Other than that, his main theme of reflection is on parenthood, specifically the relationship between mother and child.
Up to this book, there has been very little mention of Loren and really, until it shows up as a plot point, I realize I didn’t really notice how strange it was that it got so little attention, especially after Tobias learns about his real father. You’d think once that information had gotten out, Tobias would at the very least have been more curious about his mother’s whereabouts, even if he is still hurt and angry about being abandoned as a child. Regardless of that, his reflections throughout this book are very good, highlighting both his sense of abandonment, his distrust about new-found family, and his sense of hope even in the face of so much disappointment.
Loren, for her part, is great to see again, even if she doesn’t remember any of her adventures from “The Andalite Chronicles.” Her accident (did the Ellimist cause this??) and the resulting amnesia is a decent enough excuse for her abandonment of her child, if a bit soap-opera-like, a fact that Tobias himself points out in a good bit of self-awareness on the author’s part. But even without her memories, we can still see the essence of her original characterization. She is brave, throwing herself into danger to protect others. She is quick to accept the bizarre and adapt to insane circumstances with amazing agility. And she’s just generally a decent person.
Our Fearless Leader: Jake has a rough go of it in this book. He questions his choices with regards to timing with both the first and second mission, feeling that he went in too quickly with the blood bank and waited too long to retrieve their families. The loss of his parents, on top of still not being able to rescue Tom (his primary goal for being in this fight from book one) has to be a crushing blow. And as I discuss later, Jake’s perhaps more in need of family support and getting this win than the others. At the end of the book, Tobias reflects on the fact that he and Jake have essentially switched positions since the beginning of this entire affair: Jake has now lost his family and Tobias has gained one of his own.
Xena, Warrior Princess: Rachel serves as a diversion at several points in this story, using her elephant morph to good effect (I always like when she breaks out this OG morph). Her choice to break the news to her mother by walking into the kitchen as a grizzly bear…not so sure about this. I get her concern that her mom being a lawyer means that a different approach is needed than with Cassie’s parents. But I have a hard time thinking of any personality type that is more receptive to news like this while staring down a grizzly in their house. And then her mom pretty much gets wrestled into the car and drove off before she gets a chance to really process things. Does make me wish we could have seen the scene when they all arrive at the Hork Bajir valley.
Peace, Love, and Animals: Cassie really doesn’t have a lot in this book, but her interactions with her parents really does highlight the great relationship she has with them. I think we really spend the most time with Cassie’s parents throughout the series, with Jake’s family coming in second. Whenever the books dealt with Jake’s family, Tom rightly came to the forefront. But Cassie’s parents have shown up not only in her books but in others, due to the meeting location so often being the barn. It’s also no surprise that they would settle in well at the Hork Bajir valley and quickly become favorites of the local residents.
The Comic Relief: Marco helps Ax with tracking down the blood bank and assists in the various family rescue missions. As his family has already been taken care of, he doesn’t have too much in this book. While it’s both him and Ax that show up when Tobias returns to spy on his mother some more, I think it’s pretty safe to assume that Marco was the one to figure out what was going on. Not only is he clever like that, but he has a good amount of experience under his belt with absent mothers and what the sudden return of one can do to a person’s mindset.
E.T./Ax Phone Home: Other than helping Marco with the blood bank search, Ax mostly serves as the final nail in the coffin of the other family members’ innocence about the state of the world. While both groups are exposed to morphing and thought speak, it’s Ax’s arrival that seems to really cement things in their minds.
Best (?) Body Horror Moment: Hands down this goes to Tobias’s introduction of the morphing technology to his mother which he does by giving her no warning or explanation of what’s going to happen, only instructing her to put her hand on his face as he morphs. We know how disgusting this process can be, and one can only imagine how horrifying it would be to only feel with your hands, having no idea what to even expect. To be fair, Tobias didn’t have the time to really spell out what was going to happen at this point in things. Lucky for him that Loren has the brave, accepting of the strange, temperament that I mentioned earlier.
Couples Watch!: My lasting regret will always be the fact that for some strange reason, other than a few exceptions, we only really get good insights into Rachel and Tobias’s relationship in his books, and he has fewer books overall than she does in the first place. His books and the scenes therein are excellent, don’t get me wrong. But I also feel like there were a lot of missed opportunities in Rachel books to deal with how she feels about dating a bird and, more importantly, a boy who is choosing to remain a bird. But no, instead we had to hear about “King Rachel” and how she was “like, the most powerful ever!” This book has a nice scene in the beginning with Rachel showing up with food for them both, and it’s just the sort of casual, every day scene that works really well as a glimpse into what the Animorphs’ lives are like when they’re not out on missions. This being the last Rachel or Tobias book though before the end though…oof. Hurry, distract oneself!
“You know, Tobias,” she said, “we have very weird dates.”
If Only Visser Three had Mustache to Twirl: Visser One isn’t in this book. Instead, we have the rather comical granny!Controller to contend with. It’s definitely the kind of choice that is made for the bizarre mental images of a granny tearing around on a helicopter shooting laser beams. But funny
Adult Ugly Crying at a Middle Grade Book: Tobias’s musings on motherhood and what a unique relationship it is is quite touching throughout this book. He reflects on how incredible it is that Cassie’s mom throws herself in front of a “mutated deer”/Ax to save Cassie and that Rachel’s mom lunges at a fully grown grizzly with a spice rack in an attempt to protect her daughters. Tobias’s loss of family has always been tragic, even more so since we discovered his origin story in ‘The Andalite Chronicles.” But this one really hits home on this fact with the sad state that is his relationship with his mother. She has no memory of him, has been living only blocks away, and even now, safe in the Hork Bajir valley, there’s no regaining that time. But it also ends on an incredibly hopeful note with Loren’s own instinctual moment of putting herself in harms way to protect Tobias and how meaningful this is for Tobias who has never had a family member who cared about him, let alone was willing to risk their own life for his.
What a Terrible Plan, Guys!: Jake beats himself up quite a bit about the plans in this book. Most notably the speed at which they went in on the blood bank, perhaps not scouting it out well enough, and then the slow response to getting their families out, giving it a night for them all to think about it before moving into action. But really, I don’t think either of those decisions were bad in the moment. They both seem pretty standard for the way Jake has approached decision making in the past, and it’s only hindsight that makes him feel otherwise.
I will say that perhaps Jake’s family should have come first in the order of rescue. Tom being a known Controller makes his family that much more of a quick target and a higher risk all around. At the very least, they should have come second after Cassie’s family (who went first only because they were at the barn already when they all made the final decision.)
Favorite Quote: Two rather longish ones, but there were some pretty funny sequences in this book, stuck in-between the soul-crushing sadness of the entire situation, of course.
“But unless you count the Victoria’s Secret Web page, there are no babes in my life anymore,” Marco said.
I said.
“Oh. Very nice, Tobias. Go for the jugular. You’ve got Rachel tending to your every need. Me, I’ve got Ax-man.” He jerked his thumb toward Ax, who was gazing lovingly at a magazine ad for the new original M&M’s. “I’ll trade you right now, straight across.”
And the entire scene as performed by Ax when trying to get the dog from Loren was pretty good.
“Ah.” Ax nodded. “She does not understand how menacing we are.”
He tapped her on the shoulder. “You do not know me,” he said, “but I am a juvenile delinquent. I do not trust authority figures, I probably will not graduate from high school, and statistics say my present rowdiness and vandalism will likely lead to more serious crimes. I am a dangerous fellow, and I am causing mayhem in this store.”
He reached behind her and pulled three jars of baby food from the top shelf. Shoved them behind a box of macaroni. Shuffled the Cheez Whiz in front of the Marshmallow Fluff. Tossed a bag of lady’s shavers onto a bag of hamburger buns. “There. I have now shamelessly destroyed the symmetry of this shelf, undoing hours of labor by underpaid store employees. If you could see me, you would be frightened.”
“If she could see you, she’d have you committed,” Marco muttered
Scorecard: Yeerks 14, Animorphs 16
While the Animorphs did manage to save most of their families, the loss of Jake’s parents is a pretty big blow. All of them are important members of the team, but you have to think that having the leader who is facing some huge decisions is going to suffer more in going into the endgame with a messed up mindset over the failure to not only save Tom but lose his parents as well. Outside of that, the loss of their human identities is a big hit. Not only do now none of them have the normalcy of their regular lives to help balance out and provide a distraction from the war effort, but a lot of their safety came from the fact that the Yeerks weren’t on the lookout for humans.
...
(Full review on blog)
Narrator: Tobias
Plot: The last Tobias book! Sadness! And, per the usual for his books, there’s a healthy dose of tragedy here as well. Though, in a shocking turn of events, by the end, a good thing has actually happened to him!
Tobias is experience his typical woes: the challenges of the hawk life with regards to getting food. While things aren’t as desperate as they have been in the past, he’s still happy to see Rachel show up with McDonalds. He eats part of it as a hawk, the only way the calories will sustain him, but morphs human to enjoy the rest as a boy who can appreciate taste. After that, they head off to Cassie’s barn for a group meeting.
There, Cassie informs them that her parents came back with odd news from The Gardens, that people had been there requesting blood samples from very specific animals, like wolves, grizzly bears, tigers, gorillas, etc. They were particularly upset when they discovered the zoo didn’t have a red tailed hawk in residence. The Animorphs are quick to put this together: the Yeerks are on to the fact that the “Andalite bandits” might be more than they seem and are collecting blood samples to try and match any humans with morphing abilities. They all try to recollect if they’ve had blood drawn recently, and Rachel is the only one with a concern that back when they all had the Andalite flu, her mom took her to the hospital and they may have drawn blood then.
They agree that the chance is too great, and Marco and Ax are set with the task of locating the blood bank where all of the samples are being stored and tested. By the next day they’ve already discovered the facility and the Animorphs are quick to take off to investigate. Once there, they come up across the typical problem now of Biofilters at all of the entrances. They decide to use their Hork Bajir morphs and tie blue armbands around their arms to pose as the elite Hork Bajir fighters they’ve recently come up across. Using this “authority,” they are able to weasel their way into the facility and get to the computer system. Ax demorphs and investigates and finds that the Yeerks already have a partial match and it’s Tobias’s lost mother who, it turns out, has been living only a few blocks away from the neglectful uncle whom Tobias stayed with when he was a boy.
Controllers break into the room, including a Granny-like Controller who seems to be in charge. She sees the flashing light on the computer and realizes that the system had found a match. A fight breaks out and the Animorphs flee the facility, but Marco is critically injured in the fight, forcing him to demorph and confirm the fact that there are humans with morphing abilities.
They manage to get away but know that now that Marco has been spotted, the game is up for them all, the Controllers will quickly put together who the other members could be. At the barn, the reality really begins to set in with what it will mean to tell their families and hide them away with the free Hork Bajir. Jake tells them all to take the night to think about it and they’ll begin the next day.
In the mean time, Tobias goes to scout out his mother. He discovers that she is blind and scarred, but she’s also kind to her guide dog and doesn’t show any outward signs of being a Controller. Having been fooled by a tactic like this in the past, Tobias is still wary. He’s also hurt and confused by why she would give him up only to live so close by.
They start with Cassie’s family whom Cassie says are scientist and will respect the truth. Tobias flies in and begins thought-speaking to Cassie’s mother while Cassie begins telling her what is going on. When Ax appears, Cassie’s mom tries to hide Cassie behind her in case Ax is dangerous. Cassie’s dad arrives and they explain to him too. The Chee agree to watch over the remaining animals at the barn clinic, and Cassie and her family pack up and head out.
Rachel’s family is next. Rachel morphs grizzly and speaks to her mom, who naturally freaks out. Ax walks in with one of Rachel’s little sisters on his back. Rachel’s mom grabs a spice rack and lunges at grizzly!Rachel. Like with Cassie’s mom, Tobias is struck with the bravery of mothers protecting their children. Rachel wrangles her family out, and the remaining Animorphs take off for Jake’s house.
They arrive to discover that Tom went with Jake’s parents to do chores. As the time ticks by, Marco and Tobias become increasingly concerned and Jake finally begins to admit that it is strange for Tom, a high ranking Yeerk, to go on a random chore run that morning. When they spot Jake’s family returning, but they are followed by two black SUVs. Through the window, Tobias can see Jake’s mom’s face twisted with anger and in her hand, a Dracon beam. They retreat.
Later, Tobias takes off to spy on Loren once again and sees that she is under Yeerk surveillance. While he’s there, Marco and Ax show up saying that the guide dog is Tobias’s way in. They follow Loren into a grocery store and, while posing as “rowdy youth”, they steal Loren’s guide dog and have Tobias acquire it. Tobais then returns in in place of the dog and makes his way back to Loren’s house with her. After she goes to sleep, Tobias searches the house but finds no evidence that Loren is a Controller. He does find a letter from an insurance company that mentions the fact that Loren lost her memories in the accident that scarred and blinded her.
The next morning, in his human form, Tobias confronts his mother. He learns that she knew she had a son, but had no memory of him. Worse, her memory was so badly damanged that she had had to re-learn how to do basic functions like brush her teeth. This all being the case, she had chosen to give him up as a baby to relatives, hoping that he would have a better life that way. As Tobias begins to explain the danger that she is in, it becomes clear that Loren has very vague memories of aliens, specifically Elfangor. Using these glimpses of shared knowledge, Tobias convinces her to stay in her house for three days and then meet him in a nearby park.
After the days have past and Loren hasn’t left the house, proving that she isn’t a Controller, they put the plan in action. When Loren gets to the park, she enters a tunnel and the Animorphs are able to switch out her dog for dog!Tobias once again without alerting the Controllers who are following her. Back in her house, with very little time as the Yeerks close in, Tobias has her keep her hand on his face while he demorphs. He then has her use the blue box to get morphing abilities, acquire his hawk form, and begin to morph herself. She manages to complete the morph right when things get crazy. The other Animorphs arrives as back up, but granny!Controller his back and in a helicopter.
Tobias and hawk!Loren take the sky and give the helicopter quite a chase. Tobias lures the helicopter away with his mad flying skills, but is almost hit by a Dracon beam shot, only saved by Loren flinging herself in front of him and taking a hard hit herself. The helicopter goes down and Loren demorphs to heal her injuries. Her blindness also heals in the process.
Back in the valley, all of the families are beginning to settle in. The Hork Bajir love Cassie’s parents and Rachel’s lawyer mother is helping them draft their own Constitution. Tobias is getting to know his mother, and while he’s sad that she still has no memory of him, he is comforted by the thought that when it came down to it, like Rachel and Cassie’s mothers, his own mother had tried to save her son as well.
A Hawk’s Life: Most of Tobias’s books have to do with his struggle for identity between his life as a boy and his life as a hawk. But there is only brief point in the beginning where he again confronts the challenges of eating as a hawk, amusingly noting that Marco would have no problem living in his girlfriend’s room being hand fed, Tobias can’t let himself do that, even though Rachel has offered. Other than that, his main theme of reflection is on parenthood, specifically the relationship between mother and child.
Up to this book, there has been very little mention of Loren and really, until it shows up as a plot point, I realize I didn’t really notice how strange it was that it got so little attention, especially after Tobias learns about his real father. You’d think once that information had gotten out, Tobias would at the very least have been more curious about his mother’s whereabouts, even if he is still hurt and angry about being abandoned as a child. Regardless of that, his reflections throughout this book are very good, highlighting both his sense of abandonment, his distrust about new-found family, and his sense of hope even in the face of so much disappointment.
Loren, for her part, is great to see again, even if she doesn’t remember any of her adventures from “The Andalite Chronicles.” Her accident (did the Ellimist cause this??) and the resulting amnesia is a decent enough excuse for her abandonment of her child, if a bit soap-opera-like, a fact that Tobias himself points out in a good bit of self-awareness on the author’s part. But even without her memories, we can still see the essence of her original characterization. She is brave, throwing herself into danger to protect others. She is quick to accept the bizarre and adapt to insane circumstances with amazing agility. And she’s just generally a decent person.
Our Fearless Leader: Jake has a rough go of it in this book. He questions his choices with regards to timing with both the first and second mission, feeling that he went in too quickly with the blood bank and waited too long to retrieve their families. The loss of his parents, on top of still not being able to rescue Tom (his primary goal for being in this fight from book one) has to be a crushing blow. And as I discuss later, Jake’s perhaps more in need of family support and getting this win than the others. At the end of the book, Tobias reflects on the fact that he and Jake have essentially switched positions since the beginning of this entire affair: Jake has now lost his family and Tobias has gained one of his own.
Xena, Warrior Princess: Rachel serves as a diversion at several points in this story, using her elephant morph to good effect (I always like when she breaks out this OG morph). Her choice to break the news to her mother by walking into the kitchen as a grizzly bear…not so sure about this. I get her concern that her mom being a lawyer means that a different approach is needed than with Cassie’s parents. But I have a hard time thinking of any personality type that is more receptive to news like this while staring down a grizzly in their house. And then her mom pretty much gets wrestled into the car and drove off before she gets a chance to really process things. Does make me wish we could have seen the scene when they all arrive at the Hork Bajir valley.
Peace, Love, and Animals: Cassie really doesn’t have a lot in this book, but her interactions with her parents really does highlight the great relationship she has with them. I think we really spend the most time with Cassie’s parents throughout the series, with Jake’s family coming in second. Whenever the books dealt with Jake’s family, Tom rightly came to the forefront. But Cassie’s parents have shown up not only in her books but in others, due to the meeting location so often being the barn. It’s also no surprise that they would settle in well at the Hork Bajir valley and quickly become favorites of the local residents.
The Comic Relief: Marco helps Ax with tracking down the blood bank and assists in the various family rescue missions. As his family has already been taken care of, he doesn’t have too much in this book. While it’s both him and Ax that show up when Tobias returns to spy on his mother some more, I think it’s pretty safe to assume that Marco was the one to figure out what was going on. Not only is he clever like that, but he has a good amount of experience under his belt with absent mothers and what the sudden return of one can do to a person’s mindset.
E.T./Ax Phone Home: Other than helping Marco with the blood bank search, Ax mostly serves as the final nail in the coffin of the other family members’ innocence about the state of the world. While both groups are exposed to morphing and thought speak, it’s Ax’s arrival that seems to really cement things in their minds.
Best (?) Body Horror Moment: Hands down this goes to Tobias’s introduction of the morphing technology to his mother which he does by giving her no warning or explanation of what’s going to happen, only instructing her to put her hand on his face as he morphs. We know how disgusting this process can be, and one can only imagine how horrifying it would be to only feel with your hands, having no idea what to even expect. To be fair, Tobias didn’t have the time to really spell out what was going to happen at this point in things. Lucky for him that Loren has the brave, accepting of the strange, temperament that I mentioned earlier.
Couples Watch!: My lasting regret will always be the fact that for some strange reason, other than a few exceptions, we only really get good insights into Rachel and Tobias’s relationship in his books, and he has fewer books overall than she does in the first place. His books and the scenes therein are excellent, don’t get me wrong. But I also feel like there were a lot of missed opportunities in Rachel books to deal with how she feels about dating a bird and, more importantly, a boy who is choosing to remain a bird. But no, instead we had to hear about “King Rachel” and how she was “like, the most powerful ever!” This book has a nice scene in the beginning with Rachel showing up with food for them both, and it’s just the sort of casual, every day scene that works really well as a glimpse into what the Animorphs’ lives are like when they’re not out on missions. This being the last Rachel or Tobias book though before the end though…oof. Hurry, distract oneself!
“You know, Tobias,” she said, “we have very weird dates.”
If Only Visser Three had Mustache to Twirl: Visser One isn’t in this book. Instead, we have the rather comical granny!Controller to contend with. It’s definitely the kind of choice that is made for the bizarre mental images of a granny tearing around on a helicopter shooting laser beams. But funny
Adult Ugly Crying at a Middle Grade Book: Tobias’s musings on motherhood and what a unique relationship it is is quite touching throughout this book. He reflects on how incredible it is that Cassie’s mom throws herself in front of a “mutated deer”/Ax to save Cassie and that Rachel’s mom lunges at a fully grown grizzly with a spice rack in an attempt to protect her daughters. Tobias’s loss of family has always been tragic, even more so since we discovered his origin story in ‘The Andalite Chronicles.” But this one really hits home on this fact with the sad state that is his relationship with his mother. She has no memory of him, has been living only blocks away, and even now, safe in the Hork Bajir valley, there’s no regaining that time. But it also ends on an incredibly hopeful note with Loren’s own instinctual moment of putting herself in harms way to protect Tobias and how meaningful this is for Tobias who has never had a family member who cared about him, let alone was willing to risk their own life for his.
What a Terrible Plan, Guys!: Jake beats himself up quite a bit about the plans in this book. Most notably the speed at which they went in on the blood bank, perhaps not scouting it out well enough, and then the slow response to getting their families out, giving it a night for them all to think about it before moving into action. But really, I don’t think either of those decisions were bad in the moment. They both seem pretty standard for the way Jake has approached decision making in the past, and it’s only hindsight that makes him feel otherwise.
I will say that perhaps Jake’s family should have come first in the order of rescue. Tom being a known Controller makes his family that much more of a quick target and a higher risk all around. At the very least, they should have come second after Cassie’s family (who went first only because they were at the barn already when they all made the final decision.)
Favorite Quote: Two rather longish ones, but there were some pretty funny sequences in this book, stuck in-between the soul-crushing sadness of the entire situation, of course.
“But unless you count the Victoria’s Secret Web page, there are no babes in my life anymore,” Marco said.
I said.
“Oh. Very nice, Tobias. Go for the jugular. You’ve got Rachel tending to your every need. Me, I’ve got Ax-man.” He jerked his thumb toward Ax, who was gazing lovingly at a magazine ad for the new original M&M’s. “I’ll trade you right now, straight across.”
And the entire scene as performed by Ax when trying to get the dog from Loren was pretty good.
“Ah.” Ax nodded. “She does not understand how menacing we are.”
He tapped her on the shoulder. “You do not know me,” he said, “but I am a juvenile delinquent. I do not trust authority figures, I probably will not graduate from high school, and statistics say my present rowdiness and vandalism will likely lead to more serious crimes. I am a dangerous fellow, and I am causing mayhem in this store.”
He reached behind her and pulled three jars of baby food from the top shelf. Shoved them behind a box of macaroni. Shuffled the Cheez Whiz in front of the Marshmallow Fluff. Tossed a bag of lady’s shavers onto a bag of hamburger buns. “There. I have now shamelessly destroyed the symmetry of this shelf, undoing hours of labor by underpaid store employees. If you could see me, you would be frightened.”
“If she could see you, she’d have you committed,” Marco muttered
Scorecard: Yeerks 14, Animorphs 16
While the Animorphs did manage to save most of their families, the loss of Jake’s parents is a pretty big blow. All of them are important members of the team, but you have to think that having the leader who is facing some huge decisions is going to suffer more in going into the endgame with a messed up mindset over the failure to not only save Tom but lose his parents as well. Outside of that, the loss of their human identities is a big hit. Not only do now none of them have the normalcy of their regular lives to help balance out and provide a distraction from the war effort, but a lot of their safety came from the fact that the Yeerks weren’t on the lookout for humans.
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(Full review on blog)
February 28, 2024
How there's still 5 books worth of stuff to go, I don't know because things have REALLY ramped up. We're in the endgame now, and this one was a real nail-biter.
June 10, 2024
I might have said this about one already but this is my favorite. Tobias and the others get their parents out... Except for Jake! And Tobias uses the morphing cube on his mother! It's so intense.
February 24, 2019
A lot of the time, I like to think that the series ended here, on this note: with children saving the lives of their parents. It's the point of no return in many ways, because everything the Animorphs have done to this point has been to protect their families, keep them hidden. After their identities get revealed, their driving motivation changes, and so the tone of each book past this point is completely different to every one that came before.
The Diversion is, however, first and foremost a story about parents and children. Which, as you know, is the quickest, surest way to my heart.
The Diversion is, however, first and foremost a story about parents and children. Which, as you know, is the quickest, surest way to my heart.
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