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Animorphs #33
The Illusion
Tobias, the other Animorphs, and Ax already have a few problems: saving the world, keeping their identities secret, finishing their homework. Now they have one more thing to add to the list. The Yeerks have discovered a way to cause a person to demorph. And with this new device Visser Three plans on capturing "the Andalite bandits."
Now what? The Animorphs and Ax realize they have to get rid of the device—or be captured by the Yeerks. And the risk of getting caught is very high. That's when Tobias comes up with the only possible plan. Someone has to acquire Ax. . . .
Now what? The Animorphs and Ax realize they have to get rid of the device—or be captured by the Yeerks. And the risk of getting caught is very high. That's when Tobias comes up with the only possible plan. Someone has to acquire Ax. . . .
156 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1999
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936 people want to read
About the author
K.A. Applegate
251 books487 followersalso published under the name Katherine Applegate
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 190 reviews
May 17, 2015
Ghostwriter: Ellen Geroux.
So, speaking of Tobias and identity issues...
I keep mentioning that the last several books have been painful, and this one is no exception. The plot actually picks up on the mission introduced in the previous book: the Yeerks are developing an Anti-Morphing Ray, and so the Animorphs decide to use Tobias as bait in order to make the Yeerks think that it doesn't work. They willingly let Tobias be captured to further their aims.
Sacrifice and hard decisions have been the de facto theme for a while now. Which ties into one of my favourite quotes here, which is nothing new and has been touched on before, but it really illustrates the toll of leadership:
It's delivered matter-of-fact, but it's a quietly heartbreaking moment for me: the insidious creeping doubt inside these friendships, to the extent of mistrusting a simple compliment. Yet Tobias does so for good reason -- I don't think he's wrong about it, either. It's also so complicated knowing that Jake can manipulate his own friends (soldiers) for the greater good, but draws the line at his innocent family. He isn't infallible.
Anyway. After Tobias is captured, he's on his own. This book actually reminds me a bit of #6 The Capture in that regard, in that the last chunk of the book retreats into Tobias' head and becomes an internal struggle, a mental battle, see-sawing through memories. It feels like most of the book is him being tortured at the hands of an unstable Yeerk; the section drags on, not because it's bad, but because it's excruciating. He's tortured. Emotionally, physically. Straight-up tortured.
It's a very good book, but it does feel a bit like it's re-treading old ground; Tobias has been wrestling with his "am I human or hawk or what" feelings for over thirty books now. Which is an overly-simplified way of describing it, and I suppose kudos to the series for not neatly and easily resolving an issue like that within a single book, but I feel like I want a bit more (hence docking a star). I want more scenes like him morphing Andalite and learning about Andalite culture from Ax, exploring his own 'heritage', so to speak.
Also, I only just recently realised that until the forties, Ax and Tobias have half as many narrated books as the others, trading off books in the narration order -- this might actually explain why Tobias was one of the characters I connected with least over the course of the series. It's a shame, because he is great. (Ax still stood out to me because his book was the first one I ever read, and plus, yanno, he's an alien, so I pay more attention to him.)
The last idyllic scene of all the Animorphs relaxing at the beach together, and Tobias/Rachel being adorable, is an extremely welcome one. They've all been through a fucking lot lately, every single one of them. It's been a rough ride ever since the David trilogy, rarely letting up.
They deserve the downtime, but I can't imagine the future books are going to be any easier on them.
So, speaking of Tobias and identity issues...
I keep mentioning that the last several books have been painful, and this one is no exception. The plot actually picks up on the mission introduced in the previous book: the Yeerks are developing an Anti-Morphing Ray, and so the Animorphs decide to use Tobias as bait in order to make the Yeerks think that it doesn't work. They willingly let Tobias be captured to further their aims.
Sacrifice and hard decisions have been the de facto theme for a while now. Which ties into one of my favourite quotes here, which is nothing new and has been touched on before, but it really illustrates the toll of leadership:
"I'm glad you made it, Tobias. You're our eyes. Our ears. Our air force. If we lost you, we'd be nothing. Like Joan of Arc without her sword, Patton without his pearl-handled pistols..."
<Saddam without forty-eight palaces, the special Republican Guard, and a jar of anthrax? Stop the flattery, man. You’re making me blush.> We both laughed. It felt good to hear Jake say I was indispensable, but with Jake you could never be sure anymore what was sincere. And what was just expedient.
He’d been the most open of guys, back in the old days. What you saw with Jake was what you got. But he’d been a leader for a long time now. He’d learned to say what he needed to say.
Jake needed me as one of the Animorphs. He liked me, respected me, was happy for me when I was happy. And, when he had to, he used me without regard for anything but winning.
It's delivered matter-of-fact, but it's a quietly heartbreaking moment for me: the insidious creeping doubt inside these friendships, to the extent of mistrusting a simple compliment. Yet Tobias does so for good reason -- I don't think he's wrong about it, either. It's also so complicated knowing that Jake can manipulate his own friends (soldiers) for the greater good, but draws the line at his innocent family. He isn't infallible.
Anyway. After Tobias is captured, he's on his own. This book actually reminds me a bit of #6 The Capture in that regard, in that the last chunk of the book retreats into Tobias' head and becomes an internal struggle, a mental battle, see-sawing through memories. It feels like most of the book is him being tortured at the hands of an unstable Yeerk; the section drags on, not because it's bad, but because it's excruciating. He's tortured. Emotionally, physically. Straight-up tortured.
It's a very good book, but it does feel a bit like it's re-treading old ground; Tobias has been wrestling with his "am I human or hawk or what" feelings for over thirty books now. Which is an overly-simplified way of describing it, and I suppose kudos to the series for not neatly and easily resolving an issue like that within a single book, but I feel like I want a bit more (hence docking a star). I want more scenes like him morphing Andalite and learning about Andalite culture from Ax, exploring his own 'heritage', so to speak.
Also, I only just recently realised that until the forties, Ax and Tobias have half as many narrated books as the others, trading off books in the narration order -- this might actually explain why Tobias was one of the characters I connected with least over the course of the series. It's a shame, because he is great. (Ax still stood out to me because his book was the first one I ever read, and plus, yanno, he's an alien, so I pay more attention to him.)
The last idyllic scene of all the Animorphs relaxing at the beach together, and Tobias/Rachel being adorable, is an extremely welcome one. They've all been through a fucking lot lately, every single one of them. It's been a rough ride ever since the David trilogy, rarely letting up.
They deserve the downtime, but I can't imagine the future books are going to be any easier on them.
December 24, 2022
love me a children's book that is a good 90% extended torture sequence
August 19, 2016
Damn but the cuts keep coming.
This is probably one of my favourite books of the series. The Illusion is Tobias’ moment. Although early books in the series address the challenges Tobias faces living as a hawk, this book drives home the incompatibility of his life with human lives. Red-tailed hawks don’t live as long as humans. Tobias can only assume human form for two hour intervals, assuming he doesn’t want to lose his morphing ability. And as his friends age in their human forms, his human morph will always be that of a teenage boy.
To top off the sucker punch, this book explicitly addresses the attraction between Tobias and Rachel, from beginning to end. There is no subtext here, no “will they or won’t they”. From the drama-infused opening to that ending monologue where he realizes that he is human, bird, and “The person that Rachel loves” (cry), this is all about love. And of course, like any great literature, it’s doomed love.
Applegate addresses the anti-morphing ray more directly in this book. Tobias serves as bait, because the red-tailed hawk his not a morph but his actual form, so the ray won’t work when turned on him. What the Animorphs don’t count on, however, is that the Controller in charge of the ray is an insane Yeerk in the body of an insane teenage girl (an anti-Rachel, if you will) who decides that torturing Tobias is much better than merely killing him after the ray doesn’t work.
Not going to lie, the middle part of this book is incredibly uncomfortable. Like, watching a torture scene in a Tarantino movie uncomfortable. OK, maybe not that bad … but this is definitely one of the most graphic psychological moments of antagonism in the entire series. The sub-visser strips Tobias raw, emotionally speaking. If this were a TV series, The Illusion would be a clip show, with flashbacks to previous episodes interwoven through the narrative. First Tobias experiences incredible moments of pain, and then the sub-visser complements that with excruciating moments of pleasure. All the while he tries to take refuge in his subconscious, hawk and human, while he rails from the realities that Rachel might be dead and he might never get out of here. If this were a TV show, the entire episode would hinge on the performance of the actor playing Tobias. In the case of the book, Tobias’ voice is exquisite in its portrayal of his hurt and his anger.
There is commentary here about war too, of course. It actually comes fairly early in the book, as Rachel talks about how much she wants Tobias to be human with her, but they agree he should stay as a hawk because then he can help in the fight. This is one of the costs of war that isn’t always made manifest amidst the depictions of battles and campaigns: war is a suspension of the ordinary. It’s the “we’ll get married after the war” you occasionally see. Tobias is hurting, but he can’t process that hurt right now, because he has a war to fight. So he bottles it all up, stuffs it down into his subconscious, and soldiers on. Like that’s healthy.
Then there’s the ending. It’s perfect. The Animorphs get a day at the beach. No Yeerks. No lingering problems. Just a single, blessed moment of relaxation. For once everyone gets a chance to be, if not happy, then content. It is a calm before the storm, of course—nothing lasts forever and the war is far from over, with everything about to get worse. But it is such a sharp contrast to everything that just happened, and it is a reminder that there will never necessarily be a good or perfect time to take that walk, go to that beach, or be happy alongside the person you love: you just have to seize the moments as they come, because you don’t know how long they’ll last or when you’ll get another.
This one is for Rachel and Tobias. Your doomed love is too big for my heart.
This is probably one of my favourite books of the series. The Illusion is Tobias’ moment. Although early books in the series address the challenges Tobias faces living as a hawk, this book drives home the incompatibility of his life with human lives. Red-tailed hawks don’t live as long as humans. Tobias can only assume human form for two hour intervals, assuming he doesn’t want to lose his morphing ability. And as his friends age in their human forms, his human morph will always be that of a teenage boy.
To top off the sucker punch, this book explicitly addresses the attraction between Tobias and Rachel, from beginning to end. There is no subtext here, no “will they or won’t they”. From the drama-infused opening to that ending monologue where he realizes that he is human, bird, and “The person that Rachel loves” (cry), this is all about love. And of course, like any great literature, it’s doomed love.
Applegate addresses the anti-morphing ray more directly in this book. Tobias serves as bait, because the red-tailed hawk his not a morph but his actual form, so the ray won’t work when turned on him. What the Animorphs don’t count on, however, is that the Controller in charge of the ray is an insane Yeerk in the body of an insane teenage girl (an anti-Rachel, if you will) who decides that torturing Tobias is much better than merely killing him after the ray doesn’t work.
Not going to lie, the middle part of this book is incredibly uncomfortable. Like, watching a torture scene in a Tarantino movie uncomfortable. OK, maybe not that bad … but this is definitely one of the most graphic psychological moments of antagonism in the entire series. The sub-visser strips Tobias raw, emotionally speaking. If this were a TV series, The Illusion would be a clip show, with flashbacks to previous episodes interwoven through the narrative. First Tobias experiences incredible moments of pain, and then the sub-visser complements that with excruciating moments of pleasure. All the while he tries to take refuge in his subconscious, hawk and human, while he rails from the realities that Rachel might be dead and he might never get out of here. If this were a TV show, the entire episode would hinge on the performance of the actor playing Tobias. In the case of the book, Tobias’ voice is exquisite in its portrayal of his hurt and his anger.
There is commentary here about war too, of course. It actually comes fairly early in the book, as Rachel talks about how much she wants Tobias to be human with her, but they agree he should stay as a hawk because then he can help in the fight. This is one of the costs of war that isn’t always made manifest amidst the depictions of battles and campaigns: war is a suspension of the ordinary. It’s the “we’ll get married after the war” you occasionally see. Tobias is hurting, but he can’t process that hurt right now, because he has a war to fight. So he bottles it all up, stuffs it down into his subconscious, and soldiers on. Like that’s healthy.
Then there’s the ending. It’s perfect. The Animorphs get a day at the beach. No Yeerks. No lingering problems. Just a single, blessed moment of relaxation. For once everyone gets a chance to be, if not happy, then content. It is a calm before the storm, of course—nothing lasts forever and the war is far from over, with everything about to get worse. But it is such a sharp contrast to everything that just happened, and it is a reminder that there will never necessarily be a good or perfect time to take that walk, go to that beach, or be happy alongside the person you love: you just have to seize the moments as they come, because you don’t know how long they’ll last or when you’ll get another.
This one is for Rachel and Tobias. Your doomed love is too big for my heart.
September 8, 2024
*** 3.75 ***
Tobias and the gang are trying to destroy a Yeerks weapon that would forcefully demorph anyone in morphed shape, thus possibly exposing the kids' identities. He really had a rough time in this one. I felt sorry for him and even for his torturer at one point... 👍
Tobias and the gang are trying to destroy a Yeerks weapon that would forcefully demorph anyone in morphed shape, thus possibly exposing the kids' identities. He really had a rough time in this one. I felt sorry for him and even for his torturer at one point... 👍
March 12, 2019
The grimness of this series shouldn't still surprise me, but given that this book is 50% literal Tobias-torture, it does. This don't significantly progress Tobias's character, mostly rehashing the themes of The Pretender (Book 23) and turning them up to 11, but it finally resolves (or appears to) the Rachel/Tobias tension. I argue with aspects of their dynamic (I'm convinced that Rachel's conflict would be largely internal; putting the burden on him isn't just unfair, it requires honesty/self-knowledge that Rachel still struggles to find), but it's worth it for the payoff, a too-brief, golden scene that can't possibly balance out all that's come before.
February 2, 2023
The Yeerks have finished their anti-morphing ray and want to test it out. Tobias has a plan. If he gets captured and they test it out on him, the Yeerks will think it doesn’t work. This is quite a sacrifice Tobias is willing to make, despite him still struggling with his own identity. And this story gets quite dark and brutal.
January 22, 2022
Come check out my 4 hour 35 minute deep dive into reading every single Animorphs book for the first time on YouTube. I recap and review all of the books from the main series: https://youtu.be/H8kUM2q3CIU
Read
December 15, 2025This is by far the darkest issue in the Animorphs series yet. The fact that it centres around Tobias kind of tells you everything, really.
Tobias is still struggling with his identity as both a bird and a boy, when he volunteers to be the bait in a Yeerk trap. The Animorphs need to make the Yeerks think they’ve caught an Andalite, and as Tobias can easily morph and demorph from Andalite without revealing that the bandits are a bunch of kids, he’s the natural choice. Unfortunately it doesn’t go too smoothly for Tobias - he’s repeatedly tortured by a pretty blonde Controller to the brink of death, until the Animorphs come in and save the day.
---
Sometimes I struggle with the idea that these were books written for kids. Sure, there are sad moments in every Disney movie and that helps kids learn about death and conflict, but this was pushing it a bit for me. I was horrified and upset, seeing into his psyche as he was tortured almost to the point of insanity. Even though this is clearly a fictional series, it was a horrible reminder of some of the things that humanity is capable of. I’m happy to go back to farfetched tales about time travel to the Jurassic period. :(
Tobias is still struggling with his identity as both a bird and a boy, when he volunteers to be the bait in a Yeerk trap. The Animorphs need to make the Yeerks think they’ve caught an Andalite, and as Tobias can easily morph and demorph from Andalite without revealing that the bandits are a bunch of kids, he’s the natural choice. Unfortunately it doesn’t go too smoothly for Tobias - he’s repeatedly tortured by a pretty blonde Controller to the brink of death, until the Animorphs come in and save the day.
---
Sometimes I struggle with the idea that these were books written for kids. Sure, there are sad moments in every Disney movie and that helps kids learn about death and conflict, but this was pushing it a bit for me. I was horrified and upset, seeing into his psyche as he was tortured almost to the point of insanity. Even though this is clearly a fictional series, it was a horrible reminder of some of the things that humanity is capable of. I’m happy to go back to farfetched tales about time travel to the Jurassic period. :(
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 5, 2023
This one was so, so wild. Tobias dissociating under torture. AND THEN KISSING RACHEL! Clearly missed this one as a kid reliant on library availability.
April 17, 2024
Think the cruciatus curse from Harry Potter. They used that on Tobias for hours, to the point of pain that he tried to kill himself. Then interspersed it with intense happiness to remind him of something other than torture. And my boy still didn’t fucking snitch, AND drew strength from thinking about Rachel.
👏🏻 Name👏🏻me👏🏻a👏🏻better👏🏻character
👏🏻 Name👏🏻me👏🏻a👏🏻better👏🏻character
May 25, 2025
This book was so incredibly difficult to read. Usually, I have a hard time slowing down as I read these. Not this one. No, this one I could not not read slowly. It hurt to read, and not for any deficiency in the writing or the story. It hurt to read because of what happens, what Tobias suffers on this mission. If we thought he had already suffered and lost enough – getting trapped as a red-tailed hawk, having to survive as a hawk, gaining back his morphing ability but staying a hawk, learning about who his father is, falling in love with Rachel despite now being different species – that was just the internal suffering. That was just his characterization and personal development.
To backtrack to the happy side, though, there are some very touching moments between Tobias and Rachel at the school dance. And a very good “family” moment between Ax and Tobias in the woods. Those are the lights on either side of this dark tunnel of a book.
Out of respect for life, you must endure.
Quotes and comments – I typed up and commented on the first 92 pages before finishing the book, so the ideas/tone behind the comments will reflect that break.
We’d been through this before [Rachel and I]. I didn’t know how to answer. And I didn’t know why she was pushing it.
Ever since I overstayed the two-hour time limit in morph I’ve considered hawk to be my true form. Hawk is the body I have to keep if I want to help the other Animorphs and Ax combat the Yeerk invasion. Why was Rachel ignoring reality? She knew as well as anyone that I’d be out of the fight if I stayed more than two hours in human form. – page 5 – Tobias really is more about the team than the individual, isn’t he? I think Rachel is ignoring reality at this dance, and all the time, because if Tobias were to stay human, she would have a reason to “stay human” as well. Even though he’s a bird, he grounds her. He keeps her human.
“Tobias, I want to explain…” [Rachel] broke off as her eyes followed mine to the picture of the red-tailed hawk and the caption beneath it. “Longevity in the wild,” it read. “Almost never reaches the figures attained by captive birds guarded against disease and predation. A generous estimate: eighteen years.”
Rachel stared at the wall. I looked at the floor. In an instant, the bulletin board display had thrown our friendship into the harsh light of reality. Rachel was a girl who could, on occasion, become a bird of prey. I was a hawk who could, on occasion, become human. – page 9 – Ouch. Not just the harsh reality of their friendship, but also any possible relationship they might have/develop. And the harsh reality of their own lives as human and hawk.
The clock was ticking down and I wasn’t even sure Rachel was on my side.
In minutes I’d be trapped. Trapped as a person who was no longer me. – page 13 – That’s probably the hardest thing for Tobias – he no longer considers himself human, and doesn’t want to go back to it. As we’ve seen through his books, he has truly and completely embraced who he is as a Bird-boy. To become anything else would be to sacrifice himself needlessly.
[Jake said,] “I’m glad you made it, Tobias. You’re our eyes. Our ears. Our air force. If we lost you we’d be nothing. Like Joan of Arc without her sword. Patton without his pearl-handled pistols…”
/[…] Stop the flattery, man. You’re making me blush./ We both laughed. It felt good to hear Jake say I was indispensable. But with Jake you could never be sure anymore what was sincere. And what was just expedient.
He’d been the most open of guys, back in the old days. What you saw with Jake was what you got. But he’d been a leader for a long time now. He’d learned to say what he needed to say.
Jake needed me as one of the Animorphs. He liked me, respected me, was happy for me when I was happy. And, when he had to, he used me without regards for anything but winning. – page 19-20 – We are seeing a lot more of Jake through the eyes of others lately, aren’t we? And they are all seeing the same thing: a leader who says what needs to be said, and does what needs to be done, in order to win.
/Been boning up on famous leaders, haven’t you?/
“A little, yeah. Don’t tell anyone, though. I want my brilliance to appear unstudied. Natural.” Jake smiled up at me and gave a quick salute. “Later, Red Baron.” – page 20
/Tobias,/ Ax said as he reached the clearing,/ this is a special moment, is it not?/
/How do you mean?/ I answered carefully.
/Well, you are…/ Ax hesitated in an uncharacteristic way. /I mean, we are related, are we not? You are not Andalite, exactly, but you carry the Andalite heritage. I am glad you will have that DNA in you from now on. It is a very unique genetic mixture./
/Oh, we all know how much you think of your species, Ax,/ I kidded.
/I do hold Andalites in very high regards. It is true. But it isn’t an unthinking allegiance. I honestly admire my culture. There are things I would like to teach you, to share with you if you are interested./
If I was interested! I wanted so much to stay cool. To make it seem like I could take it or leave it. But this was something, finally, that I really did have a right to. I was part Andalite, even if not genetically. God knew how. Or at least [t]he Ellimist knew how. But I was. And it excited me. – page 32-33 – And now, it is time for a touching Ax and Tobias family moment. As much as the Animorphs are Tobias’ family, this is blood/ancestral family, something that until now, was never a valuable nor important thing in his life.
[Tobias struck the tree with his tail] FWAPP!
/Ahhh! Oh! Ouch! Ax?!/
/Yes, Tobias. You have impaled the tree with the tip of your blade. That is not the desired result./
/Yeah, I sorta guessed that./
I yanked and twisted. I couldn’t free my blade.
/You struck with impressive velocity,/ Ax observed. /That, at least, is admirable./ -- page 36-37 – Haha. Nice job, Ax, just have Tobias plunge right into all this, hm?
/Tobias?/ [Rachel] said softly in private thought-speak.
/What is it? Do you want out?/
/No, of course not. It’s not that./ She paused. /Listen. Um. You take care of yourself. I mean…be careful. Okay? Whatever happens? If it comes down to it, save yourself and forget the stupid mission./
I smiled inwardly. She was concerned about me. If I had been human… looking into Rachel’s eyes, feeling her next to me, I might have… But she was a fly on my hawk body. Which was good. I could keep my cool. A hawk’s feelings aren’t exactly visible to others.
/I will,/ I said simply. Then added, /I have a lot to lose. / -- page 63-64 – I’m honestly surprised that Rachel would stay with Tobias on this mission – I would think it would have been considered too dangerous to have more than just Tobias caught. Plus she’s running low on morph time (already over an hour gone), if something should happen.
To backtrack to the happy side, though, there are some very touching moments between Tobias and Rachel at the school dance. And a very good “family” moment between Ax and Tobias in the woods. Those are the lights on either side of this dark tunnel of a book.
Out of respect for life, you must endure.
Quotes and comments – I typed up and commented on the first 92 pages before finishing the book, so the ideas/tone behind the comments will reflect that break.
We’d been through this before [Rachel and I]. I didn’t know how to answer. And I didn’t know why she was pushing it.
Ever since I overstayed the two-hour time limit in morph I’ve considered hawk to be my true form. Hawk is the body I have to keep if I want to help the other Animorphs and Ax combat the Yeerk invasion. Why was Rachel ignoring reality? She knew as well as anyone that I’d be out of the fight if I stayed more than two hours in human form. – page 5 – Tobias really is more about the team than the individual, isn’t he? I think Rachel is ignoring reality at this dance, and all the time, because if Tobias were to stay human, she would have a reason to “stay human” as well. Even though he’s a bird, he grounds her. He keeps her human.
“Tobias, I want to explain…” [Rachel] broke off as her eyes followed mine to the picture of the red-tailed hawk and the caption beneath it. “Longevity in the wild,” it read. “Almost never reaches the figures attained by captive birds guarded against disease and predation. A generous estimate: eighteen years.”
Rachel stared at the wall. I looked at the floor. In an instant, the bulletin board display had thrown our friendship into the harsh light of reality. Rachel was a girl who could, on occasion, become a bird of prey. I was a hawk who could, on occasion, become human. – page 9 – Ouch. Not just the harsh reality of their friendship, but also any possible relationship they might have/develop. And the harsh reality of their own lives as human and hawk.
The clock was ticking down and I wasn’t even sure Rachel was on my side.
In minutes I’d be trapped. Trapped as a person who was no longer me. – page 13 – That’s probably the hardest thing for Tobias – he no longer considers himself human, and doesn’t want to go back to it. As we’ve seen through his books, he has truly and completely embraced who he is as a Bird-boy. To become anything else would be to sacrifice himself needlessly.
[Jake said,] “I’m glad you made it, Tobias. You’re our eyes. Our ears. Our air force. If we lost you we’d be nothing. Like Joan of Arc without her sword. Patton without his pearl-handled pistols…”
/[…] Stop the flattery, man. You’re making me blush./ We both laughed. It felt good to hear Jake say I was indispensable. But with Jake you could never be sure anymore what was sincere. And what was just expedient.
He’d been the most open of guys, back in the old days. What you saw with Jake was what you got. But he’d been a leader for a long time now. He’d learned to say what he needed to say.
Jake needed me as one of the Animorphs. He liked me, respected me, was happy for me when I was happy. And, when he had to, he used me without regards for anything but winning. – page 19-20 – We are seeing a lot more of Jake through the eyes of others lately, aren’t we? And they are all seeing the same thing: a leader who says what needs to be said, and does what needs to be done, in order to win.
/Been boning up on famous leaders, haven’t you?/
“A little, yeah. Don’t tell anyone, though. I want my brilliance to appear unstudied. Natural.” Jake smiled up at me and gave a quick salute. “Later, Red Baron.” – page 20
/Tobias,/ Ax said as he reached the clearing,/ this is a special moment, is it not?/
/How do you mean?/ I answered carefully.
/Well, you are…/ Ax hesitated in an uncharacteristic way. /I mean, we are related, are we not? You are not Andalite, exactly, but you carry the Andalite heritage. I am glad you will have that DNA in you from now on. It is a very unique genetic mixture./
/Oh, we all know how much you think of your species, Ax,/ I kidded.
/I do hold Andalites in very high regards. It is true. But it isn’t an unthinking allegiance. I honestly admire my culture. There are things I would like to teach you, to share with you if you are interested./
If I was interested! I wanted so much to stay cool. To make it seem like I could take it or leave it. But this was something, finally, that I really did have a right to. I was part Andalite, even if not genetically. God knew how. Or at least [t]he Ellimist knew how. But I was. And it excited me. – page 32-33 – And now, it is time for a touching Ax and Tobias family moment. As much as the Animorphs are Tobias’ family, this is blood/ancestral family, something that until now, was never a valuable nor important thing in his life.
[Tobias struck the tree with his tail] FWAPP!
/Ahhh! Oh! Ouch! Ax?!/
/Yes, Tobias. You have impaled the tree with the tip of your blade. That is not the desired result./
/Yeah, I sorta guessed that./
I yanked and twisted. I couldn’t free my blade.
/You struck with impressive velocity,/ Ax observed. /That, at least, is admirable./ -- page 36-37 – Haha. Nice job, Ax, just have Tobias plunge right into all this, hm?
/Tobias?/ [Rachel] said softly in private thought-speak.
/What is it? Do you want out?/
/No, of course not. It’s not that./ She paused. /Listen. Um. You take care of yourself. I mean…be careful. Okay? Whatever happens? If it comes down to it, save yourself and forget the stupid mission./
I smiled inwardly. She was concerned about me. If I had been human… looking into Rachel’s eyes, feeling her next to me, I might have… But she was a fly on my hawk body. Which was good. I could keep my cool. A hawk’s feelings aren’t exactly visible to others.
/I will,/ I said simply. Then added, /I have a lot to lose. / -- page 63-64 – I’m honestly surprised that Rachel would stay with Tobias on this mission – I would think it would have been considered too dangerous to have more than just Tobias caught. Plus she’s running low on morph time (already over an hour gone), if something should happen.
May 14, 2022
“Out of a respect for life, you have to endure.”
There’s was a lot of relief when this installment began just knowing Tobias and Rachel were able to move past the Mean Rachel/Nice Rachel incident from the last book.
But Tobias’ human form feeling so unnatural to him broke my heart regardless. On top of this, we watch as he’s captured and tortured physically which causes painful memories of his neglectful aunt and uncle to surface alongside the glimpses into his past run-ins with violent bullies. We’re helpless in being presented all the ways this young boy has been forced to set his own feelings aside in order to endure and persevere through an endless stream of trials.
This does, however, become the installment that has a major turning for both Tobias’ relationship with his culture and his love for Rachel.
I just…
Tobias🥲
(The mini-plot of the disabled girl who hates herself for being disabled to the point of willingly joining the Yeerks was ass, though, I will not lie.)
CW: war, slavery, violence, brief torture, brief reference to parental neglect + verbal abuse, ableism (internalized ableism included), brief use of ableist language
There’s was a lot of relief when this installment began just knowing Tobias and Rachel were able to move past the Mean Rachel/Nice Rachel incident from the last book.
But Tobias’ human form feeling so unnatural to him broke my heart regardless. On top of this, we watch as he’s captured and tortured physically which causes painful memories of his neglectful aunt and uncle to surface alongside the glimpses into his past run-ins with violent bullies. We’re helpless in being presented all the ways this young boy has been forced to set his own feelings aside in order to endure and persevere through an endless stream of trials.
This does, however, become the installment that has a major turning for both Tobias’ relationship with his culture and his love for Rachel.
I just…
Tobias🥲
(The mini-plot of the disabled girl who hates herself for being disabled to the point of willingly joining the Yeerks was ass, though, I will not lie.)
CW: war, slavery, violence, brief torture, brief reference to parental neglect + verbal abuse, ableism (internalized ableism included), brief use of ableist language
May 27, 2016
Back to what I've come to expect from this series!
April 12, 2024
girl help they keep putting romance in my animorphs
April 25, 2025
typical Animorphs antics! (a child dissociating while being tortured as a prisoner of war)
November 25, 2021
We return to our favorite bird boy Tobias for another outing. We're also back to fully ghostwritten books from now on. Today we introduce Ellen Geroux, who'd go on to do the most books. Poparena did a poll to see what the fan favorite ghostwriter was and she won out. She's a big deal...so it's weird nothing is known about her. Seriously, to this day I can't find other credits for her. My best guess is it's a pen name as you'd expect at least SOMETHING else, right? Weird.
Anyway, she does pretty well. At this point it's hard to tell where the ghostwriting evidence is, especially since Applegate still heavily edits these, but given The Experiment, things can sneak through. There's some "sound effects" that feel more she fell asleep at the keyboard. Otherwise it's standard, like with the usual for Tobias it gets introspective, with some parts getting more so. Likely due to this being the first ghostwritten book for a character who feels different from the rest.
And that vocab bug has hit everyone now, it's pretty notable here, I had to google a couplet times, yeesh.
Either way the book is pretty solid. Last time we found the Yeerks have created an Anti- Morphing Ray (Yes) which can force someone to de-morph, which is bad for these very not Andalite bandits. They are desperate for someone to test it on. So they hatch a plan: Tobias will get captured on purpose, and since Hawk is his natural state, nothing will happen and they will assume the ray doesn't work and move on.
This works but there's more trouble in store for Tobias. Also he acquires Ax as you see on the cover. Also spoilers in The Change he got his morphing powers back. Sorry, that's been hard to hide but now with this cover they're kinda giving it away.
So at this point Tobias is getting a bit repetitive. Usually he'll go on about being a hawk boy and wonder which one he is and by the end he realizes it's both/it doesn't matter. This showed that a bit more, it just matters less as he has less books. That stuff still works as we get good introspection but we do need more, an interesting situation.
And we get it. There's a good angle regarding how Rachel feels about this early on, but it really comes in with how Tobias spends about half this book being tortured by a controller. Yep. This is where it shines, as we see the pain he goes through. We get flashbacks through this, some showing stuff we've seen, and at least one showing more detail on what we've been mostly told about it. We see the ups and downs he's gone through and this is a good vehicle for highlighting that.
Through it we get a new villain, a human controller named Taylor. I kinda loved her. She was over the top with how she gloats, making her kinda corny but fun. Then we get a deeper layer when we find out how Taylor the human got Yeerk'd, which makes this a more tragic figure than expected. So this mix of villain types makes her really interesting as we go on. I know she appears again and it will be interesting to see how what happens.
It takes a bit for this to kick in, as the middle section has some of the usual sneaking around that is getting just a bit old. But given the torture is in just one location, and we're lucky it doesn't get old as it is, maybe it would have outstayed its welcome if it came in earlier.
Still, that stuff is what takes it from a typical but good Tobias book to more of a standout. I'd place as his weakest but that's by default. The highlights are very interesting, I just find the others reach higher highs or are more consistent. Still, it ends up being a good one that gives us more good deeper stuff and introduces an interesting villain.
Without her it just be one of the better "Yeerk plan of the week" ones, so she adds a lot. Good stuff, that about wraps up the review this week. BUT I have to bring up something I keep forgetting: After his introduction, Erik the Chee would just appear sometimes...but ever since The Extreme he has been in every single one, besides Megamorphs 3 and I think he may at least been mentioned there? I'm glad as it makes him more important but man, does the real Erik King get paid each time or what?
Okay, that's done. Looking forward to more of Ellen's work. Next time, Cassie returns and spoilers, so does Melinda Metz. That was a standout combo before, so let's get our hopes up to an unreasonable level! See ya then.
Anyway, she does pretty well. At this point it's hard to tell where the ghostwriting evidence is, especially since Applegate still heavily edits these, but given The Experiment, things can sneak through. There's some "sound effects" that feel more she fell asleep at the keyboard. Otherwise it's standard, like with the usual for Tobias it gets introspective, with some parts getting more so. Likely due to this being the first ghostwritten book for a character who feels different from the rest.
And that vocab bug has hit everyone now, it's pretty notable here, I had to google a couplet times, yeesh.
Either way the book is pretty solid. Last time we found the Yeerks have created an Anti- Morphing Ray (Yes) which can force someone to de-morph, which is bad for these very not Andalite bandits. They are desperate for someone to test it on. So they hatch a plan: Tobias will get captured on purpose, and since Hawk is his natural state, nothing will happen and they will assume the ray doesn't work and move on.
This works but there's more trouble in store for Tobias. Also he acquires Ax as you see on the cover. Also spoilers in The Change he got his morphing powers back. Sorry, that's been hard to hide but now with this cover they're kinda giving it away.
So at this point Tobias is getting a bit repetitive. Usually he'll go on about being a hawk boy and wonder which one he is and by the end he realizes it's both/it doesn't matter. This showed that a bit more, it just matters less as he has less books. That stuff still works as we get good introspection but we do need more, an interesting situation.
And we get it. There's a good angle regarding how Rachel feels about this early on, but it really comes in with how Tobias spends about half this book being tortured by a controller. Yep. This is where it shines, as we see the pain he goes through. We get flashbacks through this, some showing stuff we've seen, and at least one showing more detail on what we've been mostly told about it. We see the ups and downs he's gone through and this is a good vehicle for highlighting that.
Through it we get a new villain, a human controller named Taylor. I kinda loved her. She was over the top with how she gloats, making her kinda corny but fun. Then we get a deeper layer when we find out how Taylor the human got Yeerk'd, which makes this a more tragic figure than expected. So this mix of villain types makes her really interesting as we go on. I know she appears again and it will be interesting to see how what happens.
It takes a bit for this to kick in, as the middle section has some of the usual sneaking around that is getting just a bit old. But given the torture is in just one location, and we're lucky it doesn't get old as it is, maybe it would have outstayed its welcome if it came in earlier.
Still, that stuff is what takes it from a typical but good Tobias book to more of a standout. I'd place as his weakest but that's by default. The highlights are very interesting, I just find the others reach higher highs or are more consistent. Still, it ends up being a good one that gives us more good deeper stuff and introduces an interesting villain.
Without her it just be one of the better "Yeerk plan of the week" ones, so she adds a lot. Good stuff, that about wraps up the review this week. BUT I have to bring up something I keep forgetting: After his introduction, Erik the Chee would just appear sometimes...but ever since The Extreme he has been in every single one, besides Megamorphs 3 and I think he may at least been mentioned there? I'm glad as it makes him more important but man, does the real Erik King get paid each time or what?
Okay, that's done. Looking forward to more of Ellen's work. Next time, Cassie returns and spoilers, so does Melinda Metz. That was a standout combo before, so let's get our hopes up to an unreasonable level! See ya then.
Read
April 8, 2020I’ve been on an Animorphs binge for the last 2-3 weeks, re reading my favourite middle school series. While I don’t have time to review each book, this was one I had to.
Why, you ask? So for all the books, my thought process has been along the lines of :
12 year old me- yayyyy aliens and animals good vs evil things blowing up sooo cool!
22 year old me- okay this shit is bleak, we’re debating futility of war and morality of warriors, sentience and conscience, till what level is control of an entity alright, the aftermath of war...... damn, who let kids read these?
However, at the end of book 33. My younger and current self reconciled.
12 year old me: RACHEL AND TOBIAS FINALLY KISSED!!!!!
22 year old me: RACHEL AND TOBIAS FINALLY KISSED!!!!!!
Glad to see my love for slow burn, opposites attract, loyal-to-the-end and doomed romances, has not changed one bit.
Why, you ask? So for all the books, my thought process has been along the lines of :
12 year old me- yayyyy aliens and animals good vs evil things blowing up sooo cool!
22 year old me- okay this shit is bleak, we’re debating futility of war and morality of warriors, sentience and conscience, till what level is control of an entity alright, the aftermath of war...... damn, who let kids read these?
However, at the end of book 33. My younger and current self reconciled.
12 year old me: RACHEL AND TOBIAS FINALLY KISSED!!!!!
22 year old me: RACHEL AND TOBIAS FINALLY KISSED!!!!!!
Glad to see my love for slow burn, opposites attract, loyal-to-the-end and doomed romances, has not changed one bit.
December 17, 2020
Ah, the torture book. Such a difficult read. So well done.
November 8, 2018
(Full review here at the thelibraryladies.com.)
Narrator: Tobias
Plot: What made getting through the last book so terrible (beyond the fact that it was god awful all on its own) was that I knew this one was coming up next. And this was one of my favorites as a kid growing up. Other than the first few and the David trilogy, this was by far the book I re-read the most and thus one of the rare later series stories that I have clear memories of. And yet, even I didn’t remember just how sob-worthy this story was!!
Tobias is at a school dance and feeling awkward. While many of us realize this is how ALL teenagers feel at school dances, Tobias attributes it to his discomfort being human again after spending so much time as a hawk. What’s more, he’s pretty sure Rachel wants to dance. Halfway through their dance, however, Tobias sees the clock on the gym wall and realizes he only has a few minutes left before he would be trapped in his human morph and out of the Yeerk war altogether. As he bolts for the outdoors, Rachel catches up with him and finally opens up about some of the challenges of their relationship. Notably, that with all of the craziness in her life, she needs something normal and would it really be that bad if Tobias were human once again? Unnerved, Tobias still makes a break for it and manages to escape outside and regain his hawk form. Jake, who also noticed the mad dash, comments that he is glad Tobias made it back to hawk as the team needs him for his eyes in the air. Tobias suspects that while this may be true, Jake has also become the type of leader to use his assets wisely and say what needs to be said to keep people in line.
The next day the team meets in the barn. Erek had caught up with Jake earlier and had some news to share about the Anit-Morphing Ray that the group had failed to destroy in their last mission. The problem is that they have no idea where the Yeerks are keeping the ray, but they do know that the Sharing is hosting a big unveiling for their new community center. Through this they come up with a plan: the Yeerks are likely looking to trap a “Andalite bandit” at this event to test their ray on. Instead, the Animorphs will purposely walk into said trap and then through capture figure out where the ray is located so they can destroy it. It’s clear to Tobias that Jake has more in mind than this, and he quickly understands that Jake means for Tobias to volunteer, reasoning that if Tobias is captured, the Yeerks will assume he in morph, use the ray gun on him, and then think that it doesn’t work when Tobias fails to “demorph.” Tobias will also need to acquire Ax so he can pretend to attempt “demorphing” to further convince the Yeerks that they do in fact have an Andalite in morph. Of course, there is no guarantee that the ray gun is even safe and won’t just kill its target, so this is a very high risk mission for Tobias. But the whole group recognizes it as the only option, and Tobias moves forward with acquiring Ax.
Back in their forest, Tobias and Ax bond over Tobias’s experiences as an Andalite, especially given their familial relationship with Ax essentially being Tobias’s uncle. Ax teaches him a few tail blade moves and walks him through the evening ritual.
The next day, the team goes into action at the Sharing event. Jake sits with his family as Tom is given an award. Tobias flies above. Ax is in human morph and is meant to guide the remaining team who are all in fly morph. Hi-jinks ensue as Ax inevitably gets distracted by food and causes a minor scene. Eventually, he and Tobias manage to sneak into the back of the community center and discover the location of the Yeerk’s “trap:” a playground with a tunnel. It’s clear that the Yeerks are trying to set it up to look as if this tunnel is a new entrance to the Yeerk pool so as to temp Andalite bandits into it.
The group all reconvene near the playground. Fly!Rachel hides in Tobias’s feathers and it is her job to report back to the rest of them where the ray gun is so they can attack and rescue him. Ax and Tobias make a break for the tunnel, drawing the attention of the Yeerks. Tobias flies all the way in while Ax “aborts” at the last minute and draws the rest of the Controllers after him. Inside the tunnel in the connected room, hawk!Tobias confronts the Controllers who are in place to spring the “trap.” At their head is a young woman who looks eerily like Rachel. She identifies herself as “Taylor” and she is a sub-visser in the Yeerk ranks. She also happens to have a stun gun of sorts that she shoots at Tobias, not caring if it takes down a few Hork Bajir in the process. Paralyzed, fly!Rachel slips off to land on the floor, vulnerable to be stepped on. Now alone and with the plan already in shambles, Tobias is stuffed in a box and relocated.
When he is let out of the box, he finds himself in a larger clear box with the ray gun pointed directly at him. Visser Three shows up with two Controller scientists in tow. They test the ray gun on Tobias. When it fails, Visser Three is not pleased, feeding the scientists to a pit of Taxxons that is located beneath the floor. He instructs Taylor to torture Tobias into demorphing so he can be infested and give information on the other bandits.
And so begins pages of poor Tobias being tortured. Taylor uses the ray gun to shoot some type of rays at him that trigger pain sensors in his brain.Through it all, we get some great flashbacks to periods in Tobias’s life that highlight why he might be so hesitant to want to return to a human life. We see a bully who persistently comes after him. And a very sad scene where Tobias comes home with an award, only to be told by his lazy uncle that if there’s no money in it, than it’s worthless and Tobias should just get a job (we’re to remember that these kids were like 13 at the beginning of this series and that this scene presumably happened sometime before that even, so….yeah, the uncle is a piece of work). The scene and Taylor’s dialogue within it are a clear reference to the classic “Pit of Despair” scene from “The Princess Bride.” Eventually, Tobias realizes that he can retreat to the mind of the hawk in order to survive the pain. The hawk has no understanding of what is causing this pain or that it has any way of preventing it from happening again; to him it is just another unpleasant part of life now.
Eventually, Taylor figures out what Tobias is up to and introduces a third setting on the ray: the ability to send beams that connect to pleasure sensors in the brain, which brutally yanks Tobias back and forth between pain and pleasure, thus disallowing him from using the hawk for safety. In a few flashbacks here, we see there was once an elderly woman who would take Tobias in after school and feed him treats, one of the few good memories, it seems, from his childhood. He also has memories of showing up at Rachel’s room for what must be regular flying dates they go on.
During a break in the action, Tobias realizes that something strange is up with Taylor. It becomes clear that she has gone insane and Tobias is able to wheedle the story of her past out of her. It turns out that the girl Taylor had once been the homecoming queen of her highschool, but after a house fire she was left badly burned and missing an arm and leg. Having lost her looks, all that was important to her it seemed, she turned to the Yeerks who offered to heal her in exchange for becoming a Controller. Somehow throughout this all, the Yeerk who infested her and Taylor herself somehow merged their personalities, leaving the current Taylor to routinely switch between identifying past Taylor as herself or as a separate being. By this point, Tobias is past the two hour “limit” and Taylor realizes that she has failed to get the “Andalite” to demorph. The knowledge that there is a good chance Visser Three will also feed her to the Taxxons in the pit, she turns up the torture to a new level.
It is too much. Tobias feels himself dying and right near the end he experiences a vision. An Andalite comes to him and presses his tail blade to his forehead. He then experiences a series of “memories” from his father, Elfangor’s, point of view. At the end, Elfangor says that Tobias has come from a long line of warriors who put others before themselves, and that death to save his friends is a noble way to go. But before the light can finally go out, the other Animorphs arrive. They battle Taylor and the Hork Bajir who come to her defense and manage to destroy the ray gun.
Towards the end, grizzly!Rachel has an opportunity to kill Taylor, one that she is just about to take when Tobias tells her to stop. Throughout it all, he hasn’t been able to avoid drawing comparisons between Rachel and Taylor, two girls who are rarely beautiful. But where Taylor’s strength came from her beauty and without it lead her to do terrible things, Tobias sees the grizzly morph as an outer representation of Rachel’s stronger inner self. He asks her to let Taylor go; to be Rachel, and not Taylor.
The last scene is the Animorphs on the beach, trying to gain a bit of normalcy after all of the craziness. Tobias describes his last vision to Ax who is quite shocked. He says there is an Andalite legend that some memories are passed through the DNA and that they can be triggered in the last moments of life, but he’s been sure those were just tales.
Finally, Rachel joins them on the beach. Tobias runs to her and they hug, Rachel asking how bad it was and Tobias confessing that it was really bad, he almost gave in. But through it all, he comes to the conclusion that for now he knows who he is: the person that Rachel loves. She kisses him, and they go flying.
A Hawk’s Life: This is a great Tobias book. He has a lot to contend with before he even gets tot he torture scene. There’s his ongoing struggle with striking a balance between his hawk form and his human form and his fears that Rachel is becoming more and more unwilling to deal with the limbo that is their relationship as it stands.
The book also leans in heavily on the shortened life span of a hawk, something we haven’t seen before. Not only does Tobias see an inconveniently placed poster on this topic on the highschool walls while he flees to demorph, but there is an eagle that is dying from old age in Cassie’s barn (the team use the eagle as a way to gain entrance to the morphing ray room and save Tobias in the end of the book.) Whenever he looks at the bird, it’s a reminder of the shortened life span and the dangers that wild birds face.
He really gets into his Andalite heritage for the first time, morphing an Andalite and learning more about Andalite history and culture through his moments with Ax. The DNA-memory thing is also a great addition as it finally gives Tobias a more clear connection with his father. In one of the memories, Elfangor spends a moment thinking about how he misses Loren and wishes he was on Earth with her and his son. One has to imagine that this memory is a great comfort to Tobias, knowing Elfangor loved his mother and him and didn’t want to leave them.
And then, of course, there’s all the stuff in the torture scenes with the dark glimpses into Tobias’s past, as well as some of the more happy memories with Rachel and the woman who used to give him treats. Tobias also wisely catches on to there being something strange going on with Taylor and uses that knowledge to draw her into talking about herself and giving himself a break.
In the end, he confesses to Rachel that he almost broke. But Rachel reassures him that she knows who he is and that he’d never give them up, and Tobias realizes that his sense of self is well cared for him Rachel’s hands.
Our Fearless Leader: Tobias makes some pretty blatant statements about Jake’s transformation as a leader. He suspects immediately that while Jake might truly mean his words about being glad Tobias made it back to his hawk morph because he knows that’s what Tobias wants, Jake is also a leader who will say whatever he thinks will further his mission. He needs Tobias in his hawk form, and Tobias suspects that that is at the heart of anything he says.
Tobias also sees the manipulation at play when they’re all in the barn planning what to do about the ray gun. Jake volunteers at first, but Tobias sees that he isn’t expecting this plan to go forward. And then when Ax volunteers, he’s silent. It’s clear that he had a person in mind and is waiting for that person (Tobias) to volunteer himself, so that Jake doesn’t have to ask/order him to do it. It’s one of the more clear examples we’ve seen of Jake starting to use his friends a chess pieces. It’s cold, but it’s also necessary and Tobias recognizes this.
Xena, Warrior Princess: This book did a great job following up on the awfulness that was the last book. Rachel is clearly shaken from the experience and looking for normalcy in her life, and her romance with Tobias isn’t helping. In the very beginning of the book, she has one of the more honest conversations we’ve seen between the two. It’s clear that it’s not simply selfish, romantic reasons that she wants Tobias to consider staying human, but that her own inner struggles make it even harder for her to deal with the burden that is their romance. Further, she seems to be the only Animorph who is concerned by the way that Tobias is leaning into his life as a hawk and more and more prone to discomfort whenever he’s human. She repeatedly reminds him that his human form isn’t just a “morph,” it’s who he naturally is and that it’s worrisome if he doesn’t remember this.
It’s never made clear whether or not she was actually aware of the time and had been trying to trick Tobias into staying. My interpretation is that she didn’t really know herself what she wanted to happen, and that a small, secret part of her was both hoping he wouldn’t realize but not actively plotting to trap him.
Early in the barn conversation, she also volunteers for the mission before it becomes clear that Jake has Tobias in mind. We don’t see the scene when she insists on going in with him as a fly, but I feel confident we can assume it wasn’t much of a “discussion” at all. As they’re going in, she tells Tobias not to put the mission first. That if things get too bad, he should forget about the mission and save himself.
Peace, Love, and Animals: Cassie does very little in this book. After they all agree that Tobias is the one to go on this mission, Tobias notes that she gives him a particular sympathetic look that she reserves for only the most series moments. And then in the end when they’re all on the beach, she’s off looking for injured animals on the reef. Because of course she is.
The Comic Relief: Marco is the only other one to quickly realize that Jake has another plan in mind when they’re talking in the barn. He also is one of the quickest to realize what exactly that plan is. In the final battle scene, gorilla!Marco is the one to save Tobias, getting very torn up in the process. It’s a nice scene as often Marco and Tobias don’t have many scenes together and are two of the more disconnected members of the group, both due to differing personalities and a lack of any significant connection on their own. But here is is clear that Marco is unwilling to give up and leave Tobias behind, even if that means putting his own life on the line.
E.T./Ax Phone Home: This was a big book for really establishing the connection between Ax, Tobias, and their shared Andalite heritage. The scenes of Ax teaching Tobias about Andalite culture were very well done, and there’s an interesting moment when Tobias first morphs an Andalite when he realizes that the natural state of Andalites is to be optimistic. Ax confirms that they have had to “train” themselves to be warriors, against their natural instincts. Later, when Ax and Tobias are infiltrating the Sharing community center, it is clear that Ax is very worried about Tobias’s role in this mission, again highlighting the strong bond between them.
Best (?) Body Horror Moment: The scenes of the damage that is done to Tobias during the torture sessions is pretty vivid. Not only is the ray setting of pain sensors in his head, but in his mindless thrashing, he does a lot of physical damage to himself. He breaks a wing, loses feathers, and, yikes, breaks his beak. It’s so bad that when the other Animorphs show up, grizzly!Rachel takes one look at him and knows how bad it must have been, further spurring her anger and wish to kill Taylor at the end.
Couples Watch!: This is by far the most romance-centric book so far (and from my memory, in the entire series). It starts right out with the challenges that Rachel and Tobias face and the increasing pressure they both feel to make this impossible thing work. Rachel is clearly hitting a wall with her ability to juggle so much craziness in her life and is concerned about Tobias’s well-being, not only his increasing association with his hawk self but the fact that the stark reality is that hawks have much shorter life spans than humans.
Then of course we have all of the concern from Rachel about Tobias going on this mission, though it’s worth noting that even she doesn’t come out against it, knowing it’s the best option. She goes in with him and tells him to put himself first.
While captured, Tobias repeatedly refers to the fact that Taylor looks like Rachel and notes how very different these two beautiful teenage girls are. It’s not only a reflection on his own thoughts on Rachel (and his ongoing concern that something terrible might have happened to her when she fell off him while paralyzed. She even began to cry when this happened, one of the few times we see this), but a good reminder for readers (after the book that shall not be named…) that while Rachel is dangerous, she’s still a good person and nowhere near the type of person who would have fallen in with the Yeerks had she lost her beauty.
Then there’s the end, of course. I think this is the first time either member of either couple has said the “love” word. And not only is he saying it, but Tobias sees this love and his relationship with Rachel as the foundation of his own identity, whether human or bird. They also kiss, rather casually even, further highlighting how much more established their relationship is than Jake and Cassie who are still awkwardly skirting around each other and (like in the last Jake book) barely referencing the thing between them.
If Only Visser Three had Mustache to Twirl: When Ax and Tobias sneak in to find out where the “trap/Yeerk pool entrance” is located, they stumble on two Controllers who are discussing the mad idea that Visser Three has had that somehow in an open-air Sharing event they’re supposed to catch any animal that wanders in. But they note that you can’t say this to him or you’ll end up dead, as the two scientists discover when they try to assure Visser Three that they ray can’t possibly not work.
Taylor also makes this comment to Chapman after they’ve caught Tobias, which I’m sure is a direct jab at his learning to speak “villain talk” from Visser Three, though luckily for her, Visser Three’s not there to hear it:
“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” he offered, smirking.
“Shut up, Chapman,”the girl said calmly. “You sound like some pun-spouting villain from a Batman movie.”
(Full review on blog)
Narrator: Tobias
Plot: What made getting through the last book so terrible (beyond the fact that it was god awful all on its own) was that I knew this one was coming up next. And this was one of my favorites as a kid growing up. Other than the first few and the David trilogy, this was by far the book I re-read the most and thus one of the rare later series stories that I have clear memories of. And yet, even I didn’t remember just how sob-worthy this story was!!
Tobias is at a school dance and feeling awkward. While many of us realize this is how ALL teenagers feel at school dances, Tobias attributes it to his discomfort being human again after spending so much time as a hawk. What’s more, he’s pretty sure Rachel wants to dance. Halfway through their dance, however, Tobias sees the clock on the gym wall and realizes he only has a few minutes left before he would be trapped in his human morph and out of the Yeerk war altogether. As he bolts for the outdoors, Rachel catches up with him and finally opens up about some of the challenges of their relationship. Notably, that with all of the craziness in her life, she needs something normal and would it really be that bad if Tobias were human once again? Unnerved, Tobias still makes a break for it and manages to escape outside and regain his hawk form. Jake, who also noticed the mad dash, comments that he is glad Tobias made it back to hawk as the team needs him for his eyes in the air. Tobias suspects that while this may be true, Jake has also become the type of leader to use his assets wisely and say what needs to be said to keep people in line.
The next day the team meets in the barn. Erek had caught up with Jake earlier and had some news to share about the Anit-Morphing Ray that the group had failed to destroy in their last mission. The problem is that they have no idea where the Yeerks are keeping the ray, but they do know that the Sharing is hosting a big unveiling for their new community center. Through this they come up with a plan: the Yeerks are likely looking to trap a “Andalite bandit” at this event to test their ray on. Instead, the Animorphs will purposely walk into said trap and then through capture figure out where the ray is located so they can destroy it. It’s clear to Tobias that Jake has more in mind than this, and he quickly understands that Jake means for Tobias to volunteer, reasoning that if Tobias is captured, the Yeerks will assume he in morph, use the ray gun on him, and then think that it doesn’t work when Tobias fails to “demorph.” Tobias will also need to acquire Ax so he can pretend to attempt “demorphing” to further convince the Yeerks that they do in fact have an Andalite in morph. Of course, there is no guarantee that the ray gun is even safe and won’t just kill its target, so this is a very high risk mission for Tobias. But the whole group recognizes it as the only option, and Tobias moves forward with acquiring Ax.
Back in their forest, Tobias and Ax bond over Tobias’s experiences as an Andalite, especially given their familial relationship with Ax essentially being Tobias’s uncle. Ax teaches him a few tail blade moves and walks him through the evening ritual.
The next day, the team goes into action at the Sharing event. Jake sits with his family as Tom is given an award. Tobias flies above. Ax is in human morph and is meant to guide the remaining team who are all in fly morph. Hi-jinks ensue as Ax inevitably gets distracted by food and causes a minor scene. Eventually, he and Tobias manage to sneak into the back of the community center and discover the location of the Yeerk’s “trap:” a playground with a tunnel. It’s clear that the Yeerks are trying to set it up to look as if this tunnel is a new entrance to the Yeerk pool so as to temp Andalite bandits into it.
The group all reconvene near the playground. Fly!Rachel hides in Tobias’s feathers and it is her job to report back to the rest of them where the ray gun is so they can attack and rescue him. Ax and Tobias make a break for the tunnel, drawing the attention of the Yeerks. Tobias flies all the way in while Ax “aborts” at the last minute and draws the rest of the Controllers after him. Inside the tunnel in the connected room, hawk!Tobias confronts the Controllers who are in place to spring the “trap.” At their head is a young woman who looks eerily like Rachel. She identifies herself as “Taylor” and she is a sub-visser in the Yeerk ranks. She also happens to have a stun gun of sorts that she shoots at Tobias, not caring if it takes down a few Hork Bajir in the process. Paralyzed, fly!Rachel slips off to land on the floor, vulnerable to be stepped on. Now alone and with the plan already in shambles, Tobias is stuffed in a box and relocated.
When he is let out of the box, he finds himself in a larger clear box with the ray gun pointed directly at him. Visser Three shows up with two Controller scientists in tow. They test the ray gun on Tobias. When it fails, Visser Three is not pleased, feeding the scientists to a pit of Taxxons that is located beneath the floor. He instructs Taylor to torture Tobias into demorphing so he can be infested and give information on the other bandits.
And so begins pages of poor Tobias being tortured. Taylor uses the ray gun to shoot some type of rays at him that trigger pain sensors in his brain.Through it all, we get some great flashbacks to periods in Tobias’s life that highlight why he might be so hesitant to want to return to a human life. We see a bully who persistently comes after him. And a very sad scene where Tobias comes home with an award, only to be told by his lazy uncle that if there’s no money in it, than it’s worthless and Tobias should just get a job (we’re to remember that these kids were like 13 at the beginning of this series and that this scene presumably happened sometime before that even, so….yeah, the uncle is a piece of work). The scene and Taylor’s dialogue within it are a clear reference to the classic “Pit of Despair” scene from “The Princess Bride.” Eventually, Tobias realizes that he can retreat to the mind of the hawk in order to survive the pain. The hawk has no understanding of what is causing this pain or that it has any way of preventing it from happening again; to him it is just another unpleasant part of life now.
Eventually, Taylor figures out what Tobias is up to and introduces a third setting on the ray: the ability to send beams that connect to pleasure sensors in the brain, which brutally yanks Tobias back and forth between pain and pleasure, thus disallowing him from using the hawk for safety. In a few flashbacks here, we see there was once an elderly woman who would take Tobias in after school and feed him treats, one of the few good memories, it seems, from his childhood. He also has memories of showing up at Rachel’s room for what must be regular flying dates they go on.
During a break in the action, Tobias realizes that something strange is up with Taylor. It becomes clear that she has gone insane and Tobias is able to wheedle the story of her past out of her. It turns out that the girl Taylor had once been the homecoming queen of her highschool, but after a house fire she was left badly burned and missing an arm and leg. Having lost her looks, all that was important to her it seemed, she turned to the Yeerks who offered to heal her in exchange for becoming a Controller. Somehow throughout this all, the Yeerk who infested her and Taylor herself somehow merged their personalities, leaving the current Taylor to routinely switch between identifying past Taylor as herself or as a separate being. By this point, Tobias is past the two hour “limit” and Taylor realizes that she has failed to get the “Andalite” to demorph. The knowledge that there is a good chance Visser Three will also feed her to the Taxxons in the pit, she turns up the torture to a new level.
It is too much. Tobias feels himself dying and right near the end he experiences a vision. An Andalite comes to him and presses his tail blade to his forehead. He then experiences a series of “memories” from his father, Elfangor’s, point of view. At the end, Elfangor says that Tobias has come from a long line of warriors who put others before themselves, and that death to save his friends is a noble way to go. But before the light can finally go out, the other Animorphs arrive. They battle Taylor and the Hork Bajir who come to her defense and manage to destroy the ray gun.
Towards the end, grizzly!Rachel has an opportunity to kill Taylor, one that she is just about to take when Tobias tells her to stop. Throughout it all, he hasn’t been able to avoid drawing comparisons between Rachel and Taylor, two girls who are rarely beautiful. But where Taylor’s strength came from her beauty and without it lead her to do terrible things, Tobias sees the grizzly morph as an outer representation of Rachel’s stronger inner self. He asks her to let Taylor go; to be Rachel, and not Taylor.
The last scene is the Animorphs on the beach, trying to gain a bit of normalcy after all of the craziness. Tobias describes his last vision to Ax who is quite shocked. He says there is an Andalite legend that some memories are passed through the DNA and that they can be triggered in the last moments of life, but he’s been sure those were just tales.
Finally, Rachel joins them on the beach. Tobias runs to her and they hug, Rachel asking how bad it was and Tobias confessing that it was really bad, he almost gave in. But through it all, he comes to the conclusion that for now he knows who he is: the person that Rachel loves. She kisses him, and they go flying.
A Hawk’s Life: This is a great Tobias book. He has a lot to contend with before he even gets tot he torture scene. There’s his ongoing struggle with striking a balance between his hawk form and his human form and his fears that Rachel is becoming more and more unwilling to deal with the limbo that is their relationship as it stands.
The book also leans in heavily on the shortened life span of a hawk, something we haven’t seen before. Not only does Tobias see an inconveniently placed poster on this topic on the highschool walls while he flees to demorph, but there is an eagle that is dying from old age in Cassie’s barn (the team use the eagle as a way to gain entrance to the morphing ray room and save Tobias in the end of the book.) Whenever he looks at the bird, it’s a reminder of the shortened life span and the dangers that wild birds face.
He really gets into his Andalite heritage for the first time, morphing an Andalite and learning more about Andalite history and culture through his moments with Ax. The DNA-memory thing is also a great addition as it finally gives Tobias a more clear connection with his father. In one of the memories, Elfangor spends a moment thinking about how he misses Loren and wishes he was on Earth with her and his son. One has to imagine that this memory is a great comfort to Tobias, knowing Elfangor loved his mother and him and didn’t want to leave them.
And then, of course, there’s all the stuff in the torture scenes with the dark glimpses into Tobias’s past, as well as some of the more happy memories with Rachel and the woman who used to give him treats. Tobias also wisely catches on to there being something strange going on with Taylor and uses that knowledge to draw her into talking about herself and giving himself a break.
In the end, he confesses to Rachel that he almost broke. But Rachel reassures him that she knows who he is and that he’d never give them up, and Tobias realizes that his sense of self is well cared for him Rachel’s hands.
Our Fearless Leader: Tobias makes some pretty blatant statements about Jake’s transformation as a leader. He suspects immediately that while Jake might truly mean his words about being glad Tobias made it back to his hawk morph because he knows that’s what Tobias wants, Jake is also a leader who will say whatever he thinks will further his mission. He needs Tobias in his hawk form, and Tobias suspects that that is at the heart of anything he says.
Tobias also sees the manipulation at play when they’re all in the barn planning what to do about the ray gun. Jake volunteers at first, but Tobias sees that he isn’t expecting this plan to go forward. And then when Ax volunteers, he’s silent. It’s clear that he had a person in mind and is waiting for that person (Tobias) to volunteer himself, so that Jake doesn’t have to ask/order him to do it. It’s one of the more clear examples we’ve seen of Jake starting to use his friends a chess pieces. It’s cold, but it’s also necessary and Tobias recognizes this.
Xena, Warrior Princess: This book did a great job following up on the awfulness that was the last book. Rachel is clearly shaken from the experience and looking for normalcy in her life, and her romance with Tobias isn’t helping. In the very beginning of the book, she has one of the more honest conversations we’ve seen between the two. It’s clear that it’s not simply selfish, romantic reasons that she wants Tobias to consider staying human, but that her own inner struggles make it even harder for her to deal with the burden that is their romance. Further, she seems to be the only Animorph who is concerned by the way that Tobias is leaning into his life as a hawk and more and more prone to discomfort whenever he’s human. She repeatedly reminds him that his human form isn’t just a “morph,” it’s who he naturally is and that it’s worrisome if he doesn’t remember this.
It’s never made clear whether or not she was actually aware of the time and had been trying to trick Tobias into staying. My interpretation is that she didn’t really know herself what she wanted to happen, and that a small, secret part of her was both hoping he wouldn’t realize but not actively plotting to trap him.
Early in the barn conversation, she also volunteers for the mission before it becomes clear that Jake has Tobias in mind. We don’t see the scene when she insists on going in with him as a fly, but I feel confident we can assume it wasn’t much of a “discussion” at all. As they’re going in, she tells Tobias not to put the mission first. That if things get too bad, he should forget about the mission and save himself.
Peace, Love, and Animals: Cassie does very little in this book. After they all agree that Tobias is the one to go on this mission, Tobias notes that she gives him a particular sympathetic look that she reserves for only the most series moments. And then in the end when they’re all on the beach, she’s off looking for injured animals on the reef. Because of course she is.
The Comic Relief: Marco is the only other one to quickly realize that Jake has another plan in mind when they’re talking in the barn. He also is one of the quickest to realize what exactly that plan is. In the final battle scene, gorilla!Marco is the one to save Tobias, getting very torn up in the process. It’s a nice scene as often Marco and Tobias don’t have many scenes together and are two of the more disconnected members of the group, both due to differing personalities and a lack of any significant connection on their own. But here is is clear that Marco is unwilling to give up and leave Tobias behind, even if that means putting his own life on the line.
E.T./Ax Phone Home: This was a big book for really establishing the connection between Ax, Tobias, and their shared Andalite heritage. The scenes of Ax teaching Tobias about Andalite culture were very well done, and there’s an interesting moment when Tobias first morphs an Andalite when he realizes that the natural state of Andalites is to be optimistic. Ax confirms that they have had to “train” themselves to be warriors, against their natural instincts. Later, when Ax and Tobias are infiltrating the Sharing community center, it is clear that Ax is very worried about Tobias’s role in this mission, again highlighting the strong bond between them.
Best (?) Body Horror Moment: The scenes of the damage that is done to Tobias during the torture sessions is pretty vivid. Not only is the ray setting of pain sensors in his head, but in his mindless thrashing, he does a lot of physical damage to himself. He breaks a wing, loses feathers, and, yikes, breaks his beak. It’s so bad that when the other Animorphs show up, grizzly!Rachel takes one look at him and knows how bad it must have been, further spurring her anger and wish to kill Taylor at the end.
Couples Watch!: This is by far the most romance-centric book so far (and from my memory, in the entire series). It starts right out with the challenges that Rachel and Tobias face and the increasing pressure they both feel to make this impossible thing work. Rachel is clearly hitting a wall with her ability to juggle so much craziness in her life and is concerned about Tobias’s well-being, not only his increasing association with his hawk self but the fact that the stark reality is that hawks have much shorter life spans than humans.
Then of course we have all of the concern from Rachel about Tobias going on this mission, though it’s worth noting that even she doesn’t come out against it, knowing it’s the best option. She goes in with him and tells him to put himself first.
While captured, Tobias repeatedly refers to the fact that Taylor looks like Rachel and notes how very different these two beautiful teenage girls are. It’s not only a reflection on his own thoughts on Rachel (and his ongoing concern that something terrible might have happened to her when she fell off him while paralyzed. She even began to cry when this happened, one of the few times we see this), but a good reminder for readers (after the book that shall not be named…) that while Rachel is dangerous, she’s still a good person and nowhere near the type of person who would have fallen in with the Yeerks had she lost her beauty.
Then there’s the end, of course. I think this is the first time either member of either couple has said the “love” word. And not only is he saying it, but Tobias sees this love and his relationship with Rachel as the foundation of his own identity, whether human or bird. They also kiss, rather casually even, further highlighting how much more established their relationship is than Jake and Cassie who are still awkwardly skirting around each other and (like in the last Jake book) barely referencing the thing between them.
If Only Visser Three had Mustache to Twirl: When Ax and Tobias sneak in to find out where the “trap/Yeerk pool entrance” is located, they stumble on two Controllers who are discussing the mad idea that Visser Three has had that somehow in an open-air Sharing event they’re supposed to catch any animal that wanders in. But they note that you can’t say this to him or you’ll end up dead, as the two scientists discover when they try to assure Visser Three that they ray can’t possibly not work.
Taylor also makes this comment to Chapman after they’ve caught Tobias, which I’m sure is a direct jab at his learning to speak “villain talk” from Visser Three, though luckily for her, Visser Three’s not there to hear it:
“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” he offered, smirking.
“Shut up, Chapman,”the girl said calmly. “You sound like some pun-spouting villain from a Batman movie.”
(Full review on blog)
March 16, 2023
Beastiality at 80%
July 5, 2015
Holy crow, you want to talk about right in the feels? On a certain level, I can't believe Scholastic had the guts/temerity to publish and market this and give it to kids. I am so incredibly glad they did, but whoa; even as an adult this rips my heart out and stomps on it.
My one biggest beef with this would be that they carry forward the mission from the last book, but it seems absolutely no one has anything to say about Rachel being one person again. I think Applegate lost out on so much by not exploring the fall-out from the two Rachels plotline, *especially* since this is a Tobias book.
That said, this book is so incredible in that it spends a goodly chunk of its time actually describing torture. In a YA book. That's something else, and to have a character as awesome as Tobias have to explore what it is to stay yourself under the most extreme circumstances was outrageously intense. I can't...I just...I was totally with Rachel when she wanted to rip Taylor apart, even though I know Tobias was right.
In this we get to see that Jake is drawing further and further into leader mode, which is a whole different kind of heartbreaking; we get to see a voluntary host and how humanity is itself crap sometimes and doesn't need Yeerks to create bad situations; and we get to add the Andalite heritage Tobias has to his identity crisis. I like that that is pressed so much here, since we know that Elfangor is Tobias's dad and since the boy/bird paradox is wearing a little thin by now. Tossing in the Andalite variable really brings a new dimension to Tobias trying to figure himself out, and I love love love his morphing Ax and being able to tell us what the raw nature of an Andalite is.
But rough. Such a rough and dark book in so many ways. Oh, this series; still so powerful even after all these years.
My one biggest beef with this would be that they carry forward the mission from the last book, but it seems absolutely no one has anything to say about Rachel being one person again. I think Applegate lost out on so much by not exploring the fall-out from the two Rachels plotline, *especially* since this is a Tobias book.
That said, this book is so incredible in that it spends a goodly chunk of its time actually describing torture. In a YA book. That's something else, and to have a character as awesome as Tobias have to explore what it is to stay yourself under the most extreme circumstances was outrageously intense. I can't...I just...I was totally with Rachel when she wanted to rip Taylor apart, even though I know Tobias was right.
In this we get to see that Jake is drawing further and further into leader mode, which is a whole different kind of heartbreaking; we get to see a voluntary host and how humanity is itself crap sometimes and doesn't need Yeerks to create bad situations; and we get to add the Andalite heritage Tobias has to his identity crisis. I like that that is pressed so much here, since we know that Elfangor is Tobias's dad and since the boy/bird paradox is wearing a little thin by now. Tossing in the Andalite variable really brings a new dimension to Tobias trying to figure himself out, and I love love love his morphing Ax and being able to tell us what the raw nature of an Andalite is.
But rough. Such a rough and dark book in so many ways. Oh, this series; still so powerful even after all these years.
June 8, 2017
Poor Tobias, fighting to stay in the battle, fighting to stay human, fighting to stay with Rachel...
"We're the same you and me. Warriors. But you've got to realize that there's more I'm not just a warrior," she said, her blue eyes glittering so close to mine "I'm a girl. I'm trying not to let myself be dragged off the cliff, away from all normalcy, into this insane life we live. I don't like what it does to me, Tobias, and I need to be a girl again. I need a little bit of normalcy, okay? Not a lot, but some"
"All the things we're supposed to live while we're in school, Tobias, you know, dances like this, nights out at the movies, walks on the beach. That stuff is passing us by. I want those things. We deserve them"
Well, this one hit hard. Tobias is sacrificed or sacrafices himself, depending on how you look at it, for the group and is exposed to torture at the hands of an insane yeerk/young woman. Yikes.
I thought Ax and the kids could not use thought speak as humans, but Ax thouggt speaks to Tobias while Ax is in human morph.
"We're the same you and me. Warriors. But you've got to realize that there's more I'm not just a warrior," she said, her blue eyes glittering so close to mine "I'm a girl. I'm trying not to let myself be dragged off the cliff, away from all normalcy, into this insane life we live. I don't like what it does to me, Tobias, and I need to be a girl again. I need a little bit of normalcy, okay? Not a lot, but some"
"All the things we're supposed to live while we're in school, Tobias, you know, dances like this, nights out at the movies, walks on the beach. That stuff is passing us by. I want those things. We deserve them"
Well, this one hit hard. Tobias is sacrificed or sacrafices himself, depending on how you look at it, for the group and is exposed to torture at the hands of an insane yeerk/young woman. Yikes.
I thought Ax and the kids could not use thought speak as humans, but Ax thouggt speaks to Tobias while Ax is in human morph.
September 12, 2023
Ahhh the one where Tobias is tortured.
Can this poor kid catch a fu(king break??
If I could hug one fictional character it was, is, and will always be Tobias.
Can this poor kid catch a fu(king break??
If I could hug one fictional character it was, is, and will always be Tobias.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 6, 2014
A trap over an anti-morphing ray gets Tobias in a bind--he gets very graphically tortured by a human-Controller. Scary.
Notable moments and inconsistencies:
This book is ghostwritten by Ellen Geroux.
In this book Jake admits to having begun to study famous leaders, but jokes that no one should let on because he wants his brilliance to seem unstudied.
Cassie makes an excuse about not being able to go to The Sharing meeting because she says her parents will notice her missing and would worry. Nevertheless, she is part of the mission, with no commentary. By this point it's common for them to get the Chee to pose as them when they need to be at a mission, but this setup was never discussed.
Tobias is the first of the Animorphs to morph an Andalite, and he points out through his experience that Andalites have an instinct for optimism.
Visser Three's thought-speak voice is said to strike Tobias's ear. Seems like a poor description since thought-speak doesn't use ears.
Taylor hits Tobias with her fake arm at one point, and he notes that it's her right arm. But later in the book Taylor is spilling out her experiences about how she lost her limbs and got burned, and she refers to having "lost her left arm." She's only supposed to have one false arm so it's unclear which one is "really" artificial.
There are several thought-speaking glitches when Visser Three and Tobias are both talking in thought-speak; two of Taylor's spoken lines are framed in thought-speak as well, but this is a mistake.
While Tobias is experiencing Elfangor's memories, several phrases are used to describe his experiences which sound like things humans would say, such as "making a retching noise" (Andalites don't have mouths, so they can't "retch"), "expelling" breakfast (they can't vomit) and experiencing "nausea" (which seems like an odd way to describe it if they can't vomit).
Notable moments and inconsistencies:
This book is ghostwritten by Ellen Geroux.
In this book Jake admits to having begun to study famous leaders, but jokes that no one should let on because he wants his brilliance to seem unstudied.
Cassie makes an excuse about not being able to go to The Sharing meeting because she says her parents will notice her missing and would worry. Nevertheless, she is part of the mission, with no commentary. By this point it's common for them to get the Chee to pose as them when they need to be at a mission, but this setup was never discussed.
Tobias is the first of the Animorphs to morph an Andalite, and he points out through his experience that Andalites have an instinct for optimism.
Visser Three's thought-speak voice is said to strike Tobias's ear. Seems like a poor description since thought-speak doesn't use ears.
Taylor hits Tobias with her fake arm at one point, and he notes that it's her right arm. But later in the book Taylor is spilling out her experiences about how she lost her limbs and got burned, and she refers to having "lost her left arm." She's only supposed to have one false arm so it's unclear which one is "really" artificial.
There are several thought-speaking glitches when Visser Three and Tobias are both talking in thought-speak; two of Taylor's spoken lines are framed in thought-speak as well, but this is a mistake.
While Tobias is experiencing Elfangor's memories, several phrases are used to describe his experiences which sound like things humans would say, such as "making a retching noise" (Andalites don't have mouths, so they can't "retch"), "expelling" breakfast (they can't vomit) and experiencing "nausea" (which seems like an odd way to describe it if they can't vomit).
August 6, 2014
Tobias is yet again confused about his nature, caught between bird and human (with a bit of Andalite on the side). After some confusion with Rachel suggesting she wants Tobias to be human, the team has to go after the Anti-Morphing Ray and Tobias volunteers himself as the one to be captured, because if they use the ray on him he won't turn into a human and they'll think the ray doesn't work. Their plan to infiltrate The Sharing's community center and fall deliberately into the Yeerks' trap goes well, but then Tobias is in the position where he has to endure torture to make the Yeerks think they're wrong about their technology working to reveal morphs. He meets Taylor, a human-Controller with an insane past, and while he's tortured with memories both painful and pleasurable, he also has visions of his Andalite father. He doesn't know how much he can stand, but he won't give up his friends. Especially since they won't give up on him.
My favorite lines:
Tobias: It's funny. We've been on so many missions together. Battled Hork-Bajir-Controllers side by side. Saved each other's lives time and again. And still, after all that, it's something as simple as dancing that makes my heart pound.
Ax: "This looks promising."
Tobias: "This looks like trouble."
Ax: "As you pointed out: We are here in search of trouble."
Taylor: "Your childish loyalty is amusing. But you'll learn, Andalite. You'll learn that it's foolish to protect your friends. Friends always betray you."
Tobias: "Mine wouldn't."
Taylor: "Oh, wouldn't they? I pity your innocence."
Tobias: "What would you know about disloyalty?"
Tobias: "You've failed him. Visser Three won't tolerate failure. You know that. But I guess that's life in the happy little Yeerk Empire. I won't give in. Do you know why?"
Taylor: "No."
Tobias: "Because if I surrender, you'll live. And if I resist, you'll die. And I want you to die."
My favorite lines:
Tobias: It's funny. We've been on so many missions together. Battled Hork-Bajir-Controllers side by side. Saved each other's lives time and again. And still, after all that, it's something as simple as dancing that makes my heart pound.
Ax: "This looks promising."
Tobias: "This looks like trouble."
Ax: "As you pointed out: We are here in search of trouble."
Taylor: "Your childish loyalty is amusing. But you'll learn, Andalite. You'll learn that it's foolish to protect your friends. Friends always betray you."
Tobias: "Mine wouldn't."
Taylor: "Oh, wouldn't they? I pity your innocence."
Tobias: "What would you know about disloyalty?"
Tobias: "You've failed him. Visser Three won't tolerate failure. You know that. But I guess that's life in the happy little Yeerk Empire. I won't give in. Do you know why?"
Taylor: "No."
Tobias: "Because if I surrender, you'll live. And if I resist, you'll die. And I want you to die."
June 20, 2020
Original Review at Jaunts & Haunts
I gave this novel four stars!
Following up from the last installment, the Yeerks are continuing to ramp up their preparation of the anti-morphing ray, a serious threat to the Animorphs. With a large gathering of the Sharing looming, the Animorphs jump into action, determined to destroy the technology.
This was a fun read, and this time around we’re in Tobias’s POV.
Tobias I think is maybe the most insightful and self-aware member of the Animorphs crew, and I think that really came through in this installment. Through this brief journey we get to see a bit more depth from him, and that was really enjoyable. The other characters were portrayed really well too, especially Rachel.
The plot was better executed in this novel compared to the last one where the plot seemed like an afterthought, and I really enjoyed that. Though there wasn’t a ton of action, there was enough to keep me interested, and things took an interesting turn.
I didn’t have too many issues with this book. Primarily my problem was when the action hit a climax the descriptions got a bit confusing. Other than that, I don’t have any serious reservations.
This was a solid, enjoyable read in the Animorphs universe, and I am excited to continue the journey!
I gave this novel four stars!
Following up from the last installment, the Yeerks are continuing to ramp up their preparation of the anti-morphing ray, a serious threat to the Animorphs. With a large gathering of the Sharing looming, the Animorphs jump into action, determined to destroy the technology.
This was a fun read, and this time around we’re in Tobias’s POV.
Tobias I think is maybe the most insightful and self-aware member of the Animorphs crew, and I think that really came through in this installment. Through this brief journey we get to see a bit more depth from him, and that was really enjoyable. The other characters were portrayed really well too, especially Rachel.
The plot was better executed in this novel compared to the last one where the plot seemed like an afterthought, and I really enjoyed that. Though there wasn’t a ton of action, there was enough to keep me interested, and things took an interesting turn.
I didn’t have too many issues with this book. Primarily my problem was when the action hit a climax the descriptions got a bit confusing. Other than that, I don’t have any serious reservations.
This was a solid, enjoyable read in the Animorphs universe, and I am excited to continue the journey!
November 28, 2025
This was hard to read. The sacrifices Tobias makes for the group, wow. He's the obvious choice to get "caught" to test the Anti Morphing Ray, but he goes through literal torture, and we learn more about his life pre-Animorphs, and it's just tragic.
Pros: him acquiring Ax and learning Andalite culture, him sparing Taylor, Ax learning to make kites, Tobias reading Jake and the decisions he has to make, and how he resents himself for it, and how Tobias resents him for putting Ax in danger.
Ugh, but it's rough to read. And granted, Tobias is a hawk, but it was so hard to read about him being tortured to the point of soiling himself. He's FOURTEEN at the most!! No kid should have to do what these kids do.
Pros: him acquiring Ax and learning Andalite culture, him sparing Taylor, Ax learning to make kites, Tobias reading Jake and the decisions he has to make, and how he resents himself for it, and how Tobias resents him for putting Ax in danger.
Ugh, but it's rough to read. And granted, Tobias is a hawk, but it was so hard to read about him being tortured to the point of soiling himself. He's FOURTEEN at the most!! No kid should have to do what these kids do.
July 30, 2020
While this was apparently one of the ghostwritten books, it felt like more authentic than some of the others have been. This one is from Tobias’ POV and I loved the exploration into his identity issues, especially because of his unique predicament.
There is also a new mission that only Tobias can pull off and it ends up being even more dangerous than the gang could have imagined. Poor Tobias is tortured and those scenes made me cringe. I liked the flashbacks of his life, giving even more insight to it. The scenes with Elfangor were a little confusing but I’m hoping they make more sense later on.
I liked seeing more of Tobias’ and Rachel’s growing and complicated relationship. A solid addition to the series that had me biting my nails.
There is also a new mission that only Tobias can pull off and it ends up being even more dangerous than the gang could have imagined. Poor Tobias is tortured and those scenes made me cringe. I liked the flashbacks of his life, giving even more insight to it. The scenes with Elfangor were a little confusing but I’m hoping they make more sense later on.
I liked seeing more of Tobias’ and Rachel’s growing and complicated relationship. A solid addition to the series that had me biting my nails.
November 24, 2020
Tobias gets captured (willingly to aid a plot that will help the Animorphs) gets tortured endlessly, almost dies, wonders who he really is (hawk? Boy? Andalite?), and is saved in a messy retrieval mission. Despite the obvious trauma that’s gonna follow Tobias for life after that shit show, we end the book with everyone going to the beach and a Rachel/Tobias kiss. He even says Rachel loves him at the end.
I almost want to say “aaaaw” to that, but at the beginning of the book Tobias suspects Rachel is trying to get him stuck in human morph so they can have a real relationship, and does she really love him if she’s doing such shady things?
Also, why does nobody ever address the fact that Tobias could stay in human morph, touch the blue cube, and essentially be “reset”? Sigh.
I almost want to say “aaaaw” to that, but at the beginning of the book Tobias suspects Rachel is trying to get him stuck in human morph so they can have a real relationship, and does she really love him if she’s doing such shady things?
Also, why does nobody ever address the fact that Tobias could stay in human morph, touch the blue cube, and essentially be “reset”? Sigh.
November 26, 2020
Whew! Poor Tobias!
I enjoyed how dark and twisty this one was. Even though it started slow, it quickly picked up. I won't spoil it, but I'll just empathically cry for Tobias.
I enjoyed how dark and twisty this one was. Even though it started slow, it quickly picked up. I won't spoil it, but I'll just empathically cry for Tobias.
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