Begin Again

Remnants #14

by K.A. Applegate

The best-selling author of ANIMORPHS and EVERWORLD presents a fresh, exciting, and gritty science-fiction series that combines a little 2001, a little Armageddon, and a whole lot of action!

The end of the world has come and gone, leaving only ruins, and the Remnants. This is the final chapter in their saga. The Remnants, Marauders, and Alphas are being summoned by the Source. Unsure of the future, and weary from the past, the group travels.

But not everyone trusts the power and promise of the Source. Can it truly bring life back to planet Earth? Will the Remnants survive to tell the tale of the Rock--the times before and the times after? Only the Source knows if the universe will end, or begin again. All will be revealed.

Genres: Science Fiction, Young Adult, Post Apocalyptic, Middle Grade, Fiction, Childrens, Dystopia

152 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2003

About the author

also published under the name Katherine Applegate

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 1 out of 5]

FOR THOSE OF YOU WANTING TO KNOW HOW APPLEGATE'S SFF SERIES STACK UP AGAINST ONE ANOTHER:
Read Animorphs.

Like, do yourself a favour, drop everything you're doing, go read that series. Let me email the ebooks to you if you need them. If you can get past the sparse, straight-forward writing style, it'll reward you with one of the best-paced, long-term explorations of guerilla warfare and its psychological toll on child soldiers, with consistent character development & hard truths & a devastating ending. I simply cannot run out of good things to say about this series.

Then, if you have an especial interest in mythology, you should give Everworld a shot as long as you're forewarned that it ends on a cliffhanger. It's dark YA that delves into a lot of psychological issues, also with good development along the way, even if it doesn't stick the landing on the ending.

But skip Remnants. I'm a completionist and I'll read all the things, but having ploughed through all of it now, I can say that it's not really worth it. Substitute with Michael Grant's Gone series instead, which I'm only halfway through but I luuuuuurve it already.

------

Actual review of Begin Again, spoilerific because I've run out of fucks to give:

Eurgh.

With the visions of a regreened Earth in the previous book, I started getting the lurking suspicion that we were going to get an idyllic, happy ending on the home planet. Which could have been fine -- it's not that I begrudge happy endings, it's not that I need everything to be as soul-crushing and perfect as Animorphs -- but the problem here is:

a) it wasn't set up at all (Billy's powers and the Missing Five and Echo's baby as the necessary "ingredients"? none of this was hinted at beforehand, nor is it at all apparent why they're the ingredients)

b) it doesn't feel earned at all (this ending commits the cardinal sin of skipping the climax then jumping ten years later to the epilogue where ~life is rebuilt~)

c) it doesn't make sense! I can deal with a lot of handwaving in fiction, but because you don't even see the recovery happen here, it just seems unbelievable.

d) the moral quandaries feel forced and ridiculous. The 'choices' that the Remnants bellyached over didn't feel like legitimate choices to me (just don't tell the others about the risk! it's an easy choice! why are we wasting time discussing this!), meanwhile they don't even consider the slightly darker options that I wanted them to take (yes, kill Newton! just go ahead and kill Newton! HE IS GOING TO CAUSE PROBLEMS).

and e) all of the characterisation and character development is jettisoned along the way, along with their interesting mutations, which I had been hoping would be a much bigger deal than they were. Talk about lack of payoff. And why did the mutations just go away? That doesn't make sense either. It's all too easy, not earned; the characters should have to live with the metaphorical (and literal) scars and repercussions of their experiences.

I even feel better with Everworld's ending (disappointing and anticlimactic as it was), because at least that one makes sense. It's internally consistent. You can sorta see the threads and where they were all supposed to lead, if the series had had more time. Here, it's a rushed, slapdash effort thrown together at the last minute in a way that wasn't built up at all.

The book itself wasn't even that badly-written (compared to my vehement loathing of #12), but my sheer dissatisfaction with this ending plummets my star rating. Everyone has shacked up together like it's a Shakespearean comedy with everyone getting married and living happily ever after; everyone is procreating merrily. None of these assholes deserve this. After the delight that was spending time with Tate and Yago in #13, I was struck again by how unlikeable I found everyone in the final book; Jobs is an idiot, all Olga does is giggle and look after a baby, Echo is a whiny shrinking violet, Billy is a non-entity, 2Face is an unmitigated psychopath. Which, not to mention, all of the "villains" in this series were so, so, so stupid that you cannot respect them or find them especially interesting. I saw glimmers of hope earlier with the Troika, with the storyline of the additional mutations, but it's all a letdown by the end.

Last sidebars from me:
1) Absolutely no one in this series reacted appropriately to the fact that Tate invented time travel!!! Literally no one reacted or even commented upon this!!! SOMEONE IN THE REMNANTS PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE THIS

2) Tate... kinda travelled to the wrong time, imo? She says she died five hundred years before she was born, which means she must have crash-landed Mother around 1500. How did this incredibly advanced alien vessel escape notice for so long, or mankind poking and prodding at it? Was it deeply buried in the ocean right off the coast of Japan? And seriously no one even noticed? If it was at the bottom of the ocean, how could they walk to it later, even if the water is gone? I suppose it's possible, but the easier solution would've been for her to land after the Rock hits, but long before Alpha/Marauder/etc society arises.

3) Yep. We never found out wtf 2Face did with the fire.

4) Yep. We never found out why the hell everyone spoke English. (I was even willing to accept something like, 'they all descended from an underground bunker of American/Japanese scientists', but nope. Not even the barest attempt paid towards explaining the worldbuilding.)

5) Roger Dodger and D-Caf's dreams/nightmares while dead were completely dropped as a plot point, too.

6) With this random blond guy appearing again on the cover, I'm forced to admit that it's probably Jobs, and Stephanie was totally right-- which means it's him, Violet, and someone I can't even figure out on the cover of Lost and Found, when it SO BADLY SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE TROIKA ;;

tl;dr: This series was underwhelming. I'm going to go read the rest of Gone and hope that that holds up instead.

[Stephanie · Rating 1 out of 5]

  Okay, if we go by this being the same cover model as Isolation (Remnants #7), then this should be D-Caf on the cover. But that makes no sense, because it just does not fit with either D-Caf’s character nor his actions in this book. The second option would be a member of the Troika because of the three members on Lost and Found (Remnants #10), but that makes no sense either as the Troika play no role in this book. It could be Jobs, because he has the “poetic sensibility” to be in a scene framed by fire geysers. However, it would make the most sense if it was Mo’Steel, because he has become the leader of Remnants, Marauders, and some Alphas alike. (But it can’t be, because Mo’Steel I’m pretty sure was described as having dark hair and more Mexican features than this guy has.) Plus, Mo’Steel is the one leading the way in this book, the person everyone follows into the dangers of the future. (This is apparently a very flexible model….)

  Here’s the lowdown: If you are going to read K. A. Applegate’s series, then Remnants you can skip. Definitely read all the Animorphs series for excellent characterizations of guerilla child soldiers as they fight a hidden war, as the emotional and psychological and educative return is unparalleled in anything else I have read, while at the same time being very accessible and with its moments of levity and reminders that with friends and family around you, you can accomplish anything. If you can handle a bit looser of a plot, but something that still has rewarding character development and progress and is steeped in world mythology, then go on to read the Everworld series. If you have time to kill and you don’t mind loose plot coupled with vague characterizations and weak character developments where just about everything comes out of left field and may or may not make a modicum of sense … well, then read Remnants.

  Given that the title of this book is Begin Again, and how this series has played out thus far and with how we left things with Tate in the last book between her dreams and what she did at the end, I was almost expecting there to be a giant deus ex machina to undo everything that has happened since before the Rock hit. While it did not quite go that far, it got very close – basically it went the deus ex machina without actually fulfilling all the requirements of a deus ex machina.

  What is a bummer is that Remnants had so much potential. The last human survivors in the universe, caught on a strange alien ship that wants to play with them while the pre-existing inhabitants want to kill them, and some of the people develop strange mutations. What’s not to be intrigued about all that? It could even be forgiven a bit in the beginning for following so many people around within the context of one book, but then those people kept fluctuating and changing. To top that off, sometimes they made character advancements, but then it would all but disappear; other times, they were stubbornly sticking to their original characterizations despite all that they had gone through, which by rights should have changed them as people, even a little. By the end of the series we had lost most of the original cast, and added in a whole new group of people to take their narrative places. There was just too much going on, too many narrator swaps, and not enough logic in the plot or even the characterizations to hold it all together. In all honesty, if I wasn’t such a completionist and held out because this IS K. A. Applegate of Animorphs, I probably would have dropped this series by book 4 or so. As it was, I had to struggle to finish this last book. This is partly due to having been extremely busy the last week or so, but that I did not carve out the what, 2 hours this book took me to read, says something about how uninvested I was in it.

  Most of my gripes about this book are in the quotes/commentary section below, but here are a few that stood out:

  2Face has gone from a focused survivor to a crazed “everyone’s against me”-type, and she pretty much lost any respect I had for her desire to live. It was nearly as bad as Jobs’ in #12 thinking that Mo’Steel was plotting against him. And her final scene – I guess that is all we get about the fire. Seems like it was her trying to punish her mother for some perceived failing, but she only ended up hurting herself. (But I more than half-expected this lack of fulfillment, after never getting April’s specific gripe with Senna in Everworld.)

  Billy was still pretty awesome, but there was a veil over him. It’s like… he had been behind veneer curtains this whole series, where we could get a pretty good idea of what he looked like, but some of the finer features were just beyond complete recognition. He was larger than life as it was, but in a believable way. Here though, we get such little bits – about needing him/the Five within him, the Source (Tate/Mother), and a third “ingredient” for the regreening of the Earth – he is even more mysterious, the curtain has become more opaque, and it is just kind of confusing. There’s potential in what little we see of him to learn about being alone versus being a part of something/someone bigger, but unlike previously, his view and understanding of events is much more unclear to me the reader. Since he merged with Mother and was basically “living” on borrowed time, Billy is portrayed very much like a god-figure (even more than before), which it seems many of the characters recognized. Just look at Jobs and his unflinching, complete and total faith in Billy and in what Billy can do. The way he talks about Billy even makes him sound like a devout follower of a god named Billy.

  As for that whole ritual: That was exceedingly vague, just listing off the ingredients as Billy/the Five, the Source, and the blind baby Lumina. Then we don’t even get to see it! We see Lumina get handed off to Sanchez, and next thing we know it is the epilogue and everything is green and beautiful, much like a Garden of Eden with the Chosen few selected to live in its beauty and bounty. And how did this regreening give Lumina her sight? And the mutations that Edward, Violet, D-Caf, and Roger Dodger had just … disappeared? It just does not make sense. It is rushed, it is vague, and it is unfulfilling. The conversations they had leading up to the decision to go ahead with the ritual barely broke the surface of the deeper issues lying beneath, and did not sufficiently support their decisions.

Quotes and commentary:

  “They thought silence would erase the sins of the past. But it never does, Echo.” – page 40

  So, here it is. The universe is a big empty place, my friends. What we had before the Rock – human civilization – well, it was more precious than we ever knew. Sure, it was messy, and it could be stupidly self-destructive and all. But it was one of a kind.
  It was the best. -- page 69

  It had been a successful battle. – page 2 – And we didn’t get to see any of it. We’ve seen so many other battles, but here is another we miss, just like the one that cost Tamara her life.

  Echo’s DNA had been found wanting. – page 29 – They didn’t think to do a DNA test before they put her through donating DNA towards a new child? And just how long did it take for gestation/birth? When Echo first brings it up, it sounded like they grew the embryo outside of Echo, but by this book it sounds more like she actually bore the child herself. But it sure does not seem like it could have been even close to 9 months that we have followed the Alphas and Remnants on Earth.

  “And now we are to support the lives of two defectives until the Marauders return to steal more of our food?” – page 30 – But the food you grow supports both you AND the Marauders anyways… so this is a moot point. (Makes sense that they ultimately decide to starve Echo and her baby…)

  Suddenly, Jobs was overcome with sadness, sadness so deep it threatened to crush his spirit. – page 56 – Now, if his “poetic sensibilities” had been better represented and with more consistency in this manner during his narration, then I would have been more inclined to believe they existed. Show, don’t tell, at its finest.

  “Cool. I’m Catholic, you know. Well, I guess you don’t know. Maybe someday I’ll tell you about my – Source. If you want to hear about it.”
  Sanchez wasn’t sure how to answer. – page 60 – It has been nice to see Mo’Steel (and Olga) actively portray that they are Catholic. I like the way that Mo’Steel is reaching out to Sanchez with it, not pushy, but open. And I think Sanchez’s reaction is just right given his understanding of life and religion.

  “No books,” D-Caf blurted. “Okay, we could write some – but with what? First we’d have to make paper of some sort. Then writing instruments. No printing presses! But what does that matter when there’s no population waiting for the latest installment of the series!” – page 87 – Back to old characterization of D-Caf, which we saw so little of that it doesn’t really feel like it is who he is, even if it is.

  “[…] Earth go spinning around and we all fall off and die […,” Newton said]. – page 94 – I know he is a Marauder and did not get the education the Alphas did, but the Alphas don’t even pipe up to say that spinning is normal and how the Earth used to move. I mean, the Alphas are good at all this soil maintenance and DNA implantation, so they should know that the Earth used to spin regularly, right?

  Violet felt a rush of anger at the thought of anyone harming the storyteller. – page 106 – I still have a hard time believing the blossoming feelings between these two. For one, Violet is what, 14? Fifteen tops? Sanchez seems to have the wisdom and bearing of someone at least in his mid 20s. I know, being a Marauder is a rough life, but I doubt they’d give such respect to a teenager, even if he was under the previous storyteller’s tutelage and already recognized as being gifted.

  Was [Jobs] he any better than Lumina? Was his life – or the life of anyone else on this stinking planet – more valuable than any other? – page 122

  “[…] Luckily, [Lyric]’s been keeping a journal since leaving the Alpha colony.” [Jobs said] – page 131 – With what materials??

  “2Face changed,” Jobs said. “We all did.” – page 142 – You who not so long ago was admiring how little Mo’Steel had changed.

  He wasn’t a guy who easily lost his temper, but this … this was a damn good reason to blow. – page 145 –If I’m not mistaken, this is only the second swear word brought out in this series. At least this has better/stronger context than the first one. Still surprising for a purportedly “middle grade” series, though.

  “If we all just die – so what?” Violet said fiercely. “No one will be to blame. The end of the world is something beyond our control. We should know that by now! We’ll all just be – gone. No one will be around to blame us. There’ll be no us to blame.”
  Mo’Steel looked up at the endless gray sky.
  “Yeah,” he said. “I know.” – page 146-147 – Reading in to this, it makes it seem like Mo’Steel might have lost his faith (even though not too long ago we saw him and Olga praying through Tate’s dreams). Because in Catholicism, there is life after death, whether it be in Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory.

Typos/inconsistencies:
Impossible as it seemed that the old wreck before him was the same ship on which he’d lived so short a time ago, and been in hibernation for five hundred years. – page 55 – Except they had figured they had not been on Mother that long before waking up.

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

This review is actually for the entire series. My son had been pestering me for a few years to read this because its his favorite book series. I finally agreed I would read the 14 Remnants books if he would read the 3 Star Wars Thrawn Trilogy books.

Overall, I didn't care for this series. There were too many things about the plot that had me wonder if the author really thought things out or was just typing without thinking. For instance, when they learn about the Rock and decide to send the shuttle into space, NASA/US govt makes no attempt to send people that are actually prepared for some sort of space journey. They don't send people skilled in biology, botany, medicine, survival skills, etc. Instead they send whomever could bribe there way on because of influence or potential for leaking the truth. Then the shuttle is just sent off with no destination, limited supplies, and no plan. There were also a few unreasonable acts such as Jobs/Mo'Steel hanging on to the outside of the shuttle as it launches through space at high speed. I'm not a aerospace engineer/doctor, but I think that might destroy a body being bounced against a shuttle at a few thousand miles an hour even in low gravity.

Once the remnants arrive on mother, the intent of having adults survive seems simply to be to have them die so the writer doesn't have to kill off the kids. Mother, the ship that takes in the remnants 500 years post-launch, also doesn't make a lot of sense. Her "human" environments, especially initially, are poorly described making them hard to visualize. Its also a bit annoying that the ship can simply create anything they want out of thin air, thus meaning the kids don't have to develop any practical skills because everything they want (food, shelter, water, movieplexs) are nicely provided for them. Yago and 2Face's personalities quickly become trying and you simply want both of them to die.

Around the 8th book, I think the author started getting lazy or bored. A one point she kills what has been a significant character and does so off screen. You feel as if the writer wanted to get rid of the character but didn't want to make an effort to come up with a plot moment to do so. The ending feel the same way. the ending felt like a message from the author saying, "I'm done writing this series, they all live happily ever after, the end."

When I first read the Gone series (written by the author's husband), I tried to convince my son to read it. He said it sound just like the remnants and he didn't want to read it. Having read all of the remnants and the first 4 Gone series books, I can say that the Gone series is a much better thought out and written series than Remnants.

[Caitlin · Rating 1 out of 5]

(Series retrospective below--scroll down past the cut)

Sigh. I really shouldn't have gotten my hopes up after #13. Begin Again isn't badly written; in fact, the structure and prose are a noticeable improvement over #12, the last time we joined the Remnants and Marauders on Earth. However, this book totally fails to deliver on any of the interesting hints set up in previous installments, and the way everything is solved at the end is forehead-slappingly nonsensical. Let me break it down:

The plot of this book centers around something called the regreening ritual (get used to hearing that term a lot), a process whose mechanisms are never described but which is supposed to transform Earth from a barren wasteland to a green living planet again. After Tate crashed Mother on Earth centuries before the Rock hit, Billy reunites with the ship. We learn that three elements are needed for the regreening--the ship, the five embodied in Billy (aka the Missing Five) and a third unspecified element, which--are you ready for this?--turns out to be Echo's baby.

Are you following all this? No? Good. Because neither am I. None of this makes any sense. Not only are we expected to believe a derelict ship, a boy possessed by five ghosts (what else are they? Tell me), and a baby can speed-terraform the Earth, we're expected to believe none of the other Remnants question how this is possible. I can understand maybe Mo'Steel having faith, as he says he's Catholic, but I felt at least Jobs and other scientifically minded characters should have paused to say, "Huh?" These people grew up in the 21st century for God's sake; they should have at least a baseline understanding of chemistry and physics and biology and know Things Don't Work Like That. Instead, it's actually the Marauders who question what's going to happen and what the consequences for the world will be. Because they're so recalcitrant and primitive, y'all *eyeroll*

Yet they ask sensible questions that the book never bothers to answer. In the end, we aren't even shown the actual regreening ritual--I suspect because the writer(s) knew they were pulling things out of their hat like a magician in the last five minutes of his act. Don't get me started on the epilogue, where everyone's shown having shacked up like Brady Bunch happy families in an Edenic paradise and oh, there happen to be Earth animals again because reasons.

And no, we never find out what Billy is.

-------------
Series retrospective: Remnants was a reread for me. I read it as a teen when it first came out in 2002-2003, and remembered being vaguely bemused at the storyline. I don't think I was ever invested enough to feel cheated at the end, which says something.

On the reread, what struck me most was missed potential. 80 people escape the wholesale destruction of Earth only to wake up 500 years later on an alien starship, with weird mutations and hostile beings jockeying for power? This could have been great. It could have been a YA Battlestar Galactica meets Voyager. And I think for much of its run, Remnants at least makes a good faith effort to deliver on its premise: it has weird and awesome set pieces, strange powers, tantalizing hints at a bigger metaplot scattered throughout.

But at about the midway point, something happened. Much like Mother's course, the narrative was diverted back to Earth for the thinnest of excuses, and everything started to unravel after that. Being honest with you, I would have been so onboard if, once they gained control of Mother, the Remnants had started scouring the universe--much like Tate does--for habitable planets elsewhere. Only after realizing the universe is mostly empty would they return to Earth in desperation and attempt to use Mother's world-creation engines to regreen the Earth, knowing it would take decades if not centuries, but determined to restore the one world they know for certain could support life. The world that was their home, and could be again.

I know I just basically pulled a How It Should Have Ended on Remnants, but the fact I could come up with a better endgame plot in literally 10 minutes is a testament to how broken this story becomes after the halfway point. This could have been great, but it wasn't, and it's time to move on.

TL;DR - Go read Animorphs instead.

[Ema]

Oh, oops, I forgot to log this one. Probably because I've spent the past ten days being so angry about the ending. Like, seriously? Middle schoolers aren't dumb. You know that, Applegate. You wouldn't kill off 99.999% of the population if you thought they were dumb. This was the most frustrating and annoying and unsatisfying ending ever. Which probably indicates how invested I still was.

I think how good the Tate book is really acts as a foil to show us how bad all the Earth books are.

[Thistle · Rating 1 out of 5]

Spoilers:

I really should have stopped reading this series early on. The first book was outstanding, the next couple were pretty good, but it quickly went downhill from there and never recovered.

In the first book, the Earth is destroyed. Literally. An asteroid hits it, the planet is broken up into pieces. Humanity sends off a ship full of a dozen or so people in hibernation (very untested tech). 500 years later, those people wake up on what turns out to be an intelligent ship.

These last seven books of the fourteen book series are about the survivors returning to Earth. Why return to it? How in the world would they find anything at all there when the planet literally was smashed to pieces? Very good questions.

Through nothing more than author handwaving, the planet is actually still there! It's just no longer rotating, so one side is always bright, the other always dark, with a shadow zone in the middle where people can (and do) live. In the early books, the survivors saw the planet literally breaking into pieces, so this was a tad head-scratching. It's never explained.

Even ignoring the lack of logic in having survivors at all, they were badly written and the whole plot with the was just unenjoyable. Some of the survivors lived and farmed underground, while others acted as [we never learned!] above ground. For some reason, those who lived underground shared their food 50/50 with the ones who lived aboveground, even though they didn't have enough food to support themselves.

I have to call out Dream Storm as being an especially bad book. Somehow, on this ruined-not-ruined Earth, there were "psychic storms" -- weather storms that would attack you psychically, make you see things, basically make you live through a waking nightmare. How does that make any sense at all? This is the Earth, our Earth, hit by an asteroid and destroyed-not-destroyed, why in the world would these storms be created? Heck, since the planet isn't rotating, how is there a storm at all of any kind?

The ending (which was so so so unsatisfying and I hated it so much) was literally a deus ex machina: The intelligent ship was basically a god, came from the sky to land on the ruined Earth, and in minutes turned the planet back how it had been -- green, full of plant and animal life, more humans). The whole story felt so pointless when that happened. Plus, like the Harry Potter books, there was an afterwards where the survivors were all paired off and had kids. Blah. /end spoiler cut



The author said she was unhappy she had taken the story in this direction (unhappy with this last half of the series), and I 100% agree with her. It makes zero sense, and it ruined whatever joy I had left for the series.

My earlier complaints about the series continued on through these books: I question if they were edited at all (typos on Every Single Page). Each book was was short! At my usual reading pace, each one took about an hour and a half to read. Insane. It felt like each book was a chapter, not a stand-alone book.

I can strongly recommend the first book of the series, but I'd just as strongly suggest stopping after it.

[Riah Wamby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Significantly better than a lot of other books in the series, but somewhat disappointing as a finale. There were so many initiated plot points that were just ~dropped~, character development that didn’t make sense, and a general sense of being rushed. It’s too bad because the good parts of the Remnants series were so, so good. The pressure on KAA to knock out a book every other month really shows, and I’m bummed about it. This series could do hella well with a retcon, because it def got my brain moving in fun ways despite the ways in which it fell short.

[Breonna · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a awesome book

[Arlenne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kishimoto based Naruto's epilogue on k. Applegate's Remnants epilogue. her impact!
jk aside this was bad

[Sinisuo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oikeasti 4½ mutta jos tässä pystyy puolia tähtiä antamaan, niin minulta moinen ei ole sujunut.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Uff, done with this one. It was an odd, confusing, boring and not-for-me-anymore series.

[Julie Decker · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Alphas, the Marauders, and the remaining Mayflower survivors have figured out there's a possibility to restore Earth to being a planet they can actually live on. But it may require some sacrifices, and not everyone thinks it is a good idea, so they may attempt to stop it. In this new world, what awaits these children and adults, some of whom developed unusual abilities and afflictions? Will they truly find a place to call home?

This was another series that I felt must have been fired by the publisher or something, because it was building in the beginning and plugging in so many potential threads that might have been leading somewhere, and then . . . suddenly everything rushed to put a tidy lid on the book, and in this case it was even saccharine sweet restoration for the Earth in the form of a ritual they just have to perform and poof, the Earth is better. Even in science fiction that doesn't really make a lot of sense, and this book actually didn't even try to. I was sad that 2Face never really became the great character I so wanted her to be, and we never did find out the complete ending for some of the characters who faded into the background. A happily ever after was also stitched on with regard to their mutations, and it was just so sad to see a series like this circle the drain and go down.

[Erameline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank heavens for RAF-- the first time I tried reading this series, I didn't pick them all up before they went out of print! AHHH! Anyway, I'm so glad I got to the ending and finally wrapped up this ridiculously incredible story. I was young and impressionable when it began, and boy, did it leave an imprint.

I met Mrs. Applegate at a book signing last summer and had her autograph Remnants #1. She said she doesn't usually hear too much about it, which was surprising. Anyway, this woman has heavily influenced my writing style and I just adore her mastery of human nature and the expression of personalities and disorders (PTSD, anyone?) and the way she effortlessly writes PoC and women and ugh. Adore. I'm blathering about the series as a whole here but man.

[Jeff G · Rating 5 out of 5]

Being a huge Applegate fan since Animorphs and through Everworld, I followed all these books from their release date til the end of the series.

I loved Remnants. It was dark and more mature in a lot of ways compared to Animorphs. I loved the character of Jobs, and I was about his age when the books were released so I was able to almost imagine myself in that position.

Without spoiling the series or the end, I was happy how unlike Animorphs this series had a definite ending and didn't do the whole
Cliff hanger thing. These books are quick reads for anyone over 14 years old, but tell a gripping sci fi story. Check it out.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great ending to the story of the Remnants. I was a little concerned that I would not be happy with the ending, but it all came together and ended in a good way. All in all a great series and a fun read.

[Swankivy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Remnants #14 was a bit of a letdown, things fit too neatly and 2Face just made no sense. ::sigh:: I guess Animorphs will remain my favorite of the series written by this author, since this one copped out.

[Sami · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it. Too much death over the series, but the ending was lovely. There are so many lessons to be learnt from the books, so many themes to explore. Just sad that it's not well known enough to be analysed properly.

[Aaron C. Burke · Rating 4 out of 5]

ditto the Remnants review, this is book 14 of Katherine Applegate's Remnants sci fic saga.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't believe it's over. That was a really good ending.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

OMG. So since 2002 this epic has been in my head. I just can't believe it's over now.