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Animorphs #47
The Resistance
The Animorphs and Ax have to make the most important decision they've ever had to make: Do they continue to fight the Yeerks in secret, or is it time to let everyone know there is a resistance? That the Animorphs exist. And that Earth does stand a small chance against the invasion.
Jake knows that either choice is a major one. Not one that some kid should be responsible for. But he's getting tired of the pressure. So, even though he realizes that other Animorphs need him to be strong, he doesn't feel that way. In fact, he feels just the opposite. And Jake knows if he starts to lose it the Animorphs are done. . . .
Jake knows that either choice is a major one. Not one that some kid should be responsible for. But he's getting tired of the pressure. So, even though he realizes that other Animorphs need him to be strong, he doesn't feel that way. In fact, he feels just the opposite. And Jake knows if he starts to lose it the Animorphs are done. . . .
141 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2000
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925 people want to read
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K.A. Applegate
251 books486 followersalso published under the name Katherine Applegate
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 132 reviews
September 21, 2024
A free Hork-Bajir has been captured by the Yeerks. The Animorphs quickly need to free him again before the Yeerks find out about the colony. The Animorphs then face the biggest decision they've ever had to make. Will they continue to fight the Yeerks in secret? Or is it time to let everyone know that both the Yeerks and the Animorphs exist?
Jake is reading his ancestor’s journal from the American Civil War throughout the story. And we as the readers can see the parallels between the American Civil War and the war the Animorphs are fighting here against the Yeerks, with the freedom of the Hork-Bajir at stake. It’s a really strong concept. Though the two timelines don’t manage to work well together. And the storyline set in the past is simply a bit too boring.
Long story short: great concept, not so great execution. And unfortunately yet another filler story after a couple of strong and important installments for the series as a whole.
Jake is reading his ancestor’s journal from the American Civil War throughout the story. And we as the readers can see the parallels between the American Civil War and the war the Animorphs are fighting here against the Yeerks, with the freedom of the Hork-Bajir at stake. It’s a really strong concept. Though the two timelines don’t manage to work well together. And the storyline set in the past is simply a bit too boring.
Long story short: great concept, not so great execution. And unfortunately yet another filler story after a couple of strong and important installments for the series as a whole.
November 15, 2015
Ghostwriter: Ellen Geroux again! And I'm glad it was, because I might have outright loathed this in someone else's hands.
This is one of those instances where I can absolutely see what the author & premise were going for, and yet I'm not sure how I feel about the overall effect -- 2.5 stars, maybe? I see the point of all the parallels, as Stephanie has beautifully pointed out: Jake as his Union soldier ancestor, a youth in over his head and trying to lead a small, hopeless force. The Yeerks as the relentlessly oncoming Confederate army. Visser Three as the legendary enemy general, even. The Hork-Bajir as the freed slaves, desperate to fight for their own freedom (in the constant words of the Hork-Bajir themselves: live free or die).
Structure-wise, though, I'm just not a fan of the back-and-forthing between present-day & Jake's ancestor's memories. The moment I realised that's where it was headed, I went "oh no", and ended up skimming most of the flashback chapters because I had no attachment to Fitzhenry as a protagonist -- this far into the series, I'm here for the Animorphs, and I was more interested in the present-day story.
The eponymous resistance -- humans recruited to their cause -- were also so flat-out aggravating and ludicrous in their using Star Trek terms and being so hapless. Again, I liked the idea of them (hapless bystanders joining the fight! normal people exhibiting bravery! showing that the average citizen can embrace the Animorphs' cause! yes!!) but not so much the execution, because I simply could not believe that people could be so freakin' stupid. Maybe I'm expecting too much of our species. But when they started taking photos and talking about writing on their blog about this -- a potential MASSIVE breach -- I found myself thinking how it would be so, so much easier to just have let them all die. :| The deaths of sixteen people shouldn't be so hard to blink at, these days.
But there is still good stuff in this book: all of the good guys displaying hope and ingenuity, as Marco pointed out in the previous book, some of mankind's greatest strengths. The negative ripples and effects still coursing through the team from their actions, Jake continuing to prioritise utility and expediency over friendship. The military history that his family is steeped in, showing that for all his normalcy, he does come from a long line of soldiers. At the end of the day, people are alike, and die and bleed alike, and history repeats itself. Accept help where you can, and don't underestimate those who are different.
The book tackles overt, ugly racism too, but ultimately it didn't work for me. Like... The Hork-Bajir were literally bio-engineered for docile stupidity, so their IQ honestly is much lower than humans', so I feel a bit weird about comparing them to black slaves.
I think #31 The Conspiracy had an approach to Jake's family's war history that I preferred: a few quotes from Grandpa G, the parallels between grizzled soldiers who've seen too much, fighting for their brothers in the foxhole, but maybe not in suuuuuch a long tangent as this, with a character we don't care about and won't see again. It works for the Chronicles because those stories tie into the overarching mythos/backstory of the series/world in a much more concrete way.
I can forgive how ABSOLUTELY IN YOUR FACE!!!!!!! the parallels are because this is a YA book, too, but it's not often that I feel like I have to forgive Animorphs for something.
It's an interesting experiment and a parallel-contrast between wars -- ultimately ending on another inconclusive conflicted Animorphs note, because all you can do is hope that you've done the best you can with the tools you have -- but in the end, I think it's not my cuppa. 2.5 stars generously bumped up a little because I did highlight a lot of quotes.
This is one of those instances where I can absolutely see what the author & premise were going for, and yet I'm not sure how I feel about the overall effect -- 2.5 stars, maybe? I see the point of all the parallels, as Stephanie has beautifully pointed out: Jake as his Union soldier ancestor, a youth in over his head and trying to lead a small, hopeless force. The Yeerks as the relentlessly oncoming Confederate army. Visser Three as the legendary enemy general, even. The Hork-Bajir as the freed slaves, desperate to fight for their own freedom (in the constant words of the Hork-Bajir themselves: live free or die).
Structure-wise, though, I'm just not a fan of the back-and-forthing between present-day & Jake's ancestor's memories. The moment I realised that's where it was headed, I went "oh no", and ended up skimming most of the flashback chapters because I had no attachment to Fitzhenry as a protagonist -- this far into the series, I'm here for the Animorphs, and I was more interested in the present-day story.
The eponymous resistance -- humans recruited to their cause -- were also so flat-out aggravating and ludicrous in their using Star Trek terms and being so hapless. Again, I liked the idea of them (hapless bystanders joining the fight! normal people exhibiting bravery! showing that the average citizen can embrace the Animorphs' cause! yes!!) but not so much the execution, because I simply could not believe that people could be so freakin' stupid. Maybe I'm expecting too much of our species. But when they started taking photos and talking about writing on their blog about this -- a potential MASSIVE breach -- I found myself thinking how it would be so, so much easier to just have let them all die. :| The deaths of sixteen people shouldn't be so hard to blink at, these days.
But there is still good stuff in this book: all of the good guys displaying hope and ingenuity, as Marco pointed out in the previous book, some of mankind's greatest strengths. The negative ripples and effects still coursing through the team from their actions, Jake continuing to prioritise utility and expediency over friendship. The military history that his family is steeped in, showing that for all his normalcy, he does come from a long line of soldiers. At the end of the day, people are alike, and die and bleed alike, and history repeats itself. Accept help where you can, and don't underestimate those who are different.
The book tackles overt, ugly racism too, but ultimately it didn't work for me. Like... The Hork-Bajir were literally bio-engineered for docile stupidity, so their IQ honestly is much lower than humans', so I feel a bit weird about comparing them to black slaves.
I think #31 The Conspiracy had an approach to Jake's family's war history that I preferred: a few quotes from Grandpa G, the parallels between grizzled soldiers who've seen too much, fighting for their brothers in the foxhole, but maybe not in suuuuuch a long tangent as this, with a character we don't care about and won't see again. It works for the Chronicles because those stories tie into the overarching mythos/backstory of the series/world in a much more concrete way.
I can forgive how ABSOLUTELY IN YOUR FACE!!!!!!! the parallels are because this is a YA book, too, but it's not often that I feel like I have to forgive Animorphs for something.
It's an interesting experiment and a parallel-contrast between wars -- ultimately ending on another inconclusive conflicted Animorphs note, because all you can do is hope that you've done the best you can with the tools you have -- but in the end, I think it's not my cuppa. 2.5 stars generously bumped up a little because I did highlight a lot of quotes.
April 8, 2018
“And then … AND THEN … THEN THEY HAVE TO TURN INTO BEAVERS—fucking beavers!—to save the day. By building a DAM. Because they’re BEAVERS.”
Occasionally I like to imagine how a book might have been pitched if the pitch meeting involved lots of drinking. (Disclaimer: I have never been drunk. Maybe beavers are inherently sobering.)
The Resistance is such a weird instalment in the Animorphs series. On the one hand, the fate of the free Hork-Bajir colony is in the Animorphs’ hands, and in many ways, this marks the start of the proper, open war between the Yeerks and the resistance. On the other hand … beavers. And space hippie hikers. Oh, and an epistolary story-within-a-story of a Civil War ancestor of Jake’s.
Look, I’d probably get letters for this if anyone other than Julie read and cared about these Animorphs reviews, and I don’t mean to denigrate the proud and mighty beaver. It’s a great animal. And the Animorphs’ plan to dam the river in such a way as to flood out the invading Yeerk forces is extremely clever and a good example of “big picture” strategy in the larger battles they will now have to fight. Yet the way it’s played in The Resistance is quite comical, from the acquiring of the beaver DNA to the Animorphs teaming up with the two actual beavers. The humour is probably there to offset the grimdark atmosphere of this hopelessly outmatched battle that’s going to happen—still, these parts of the book feel like they belong much earlier in the series.
Similarly, Jake’s interactions with the hikers who eventually decide to join the resistance are both hilarious and bleak in their outlook. I love that the Animorphs have just decided, after the events of the previous book, to go, “Fuck it, we’re just going to talk to humans in morph if we have to”. Secrecy is starting to crumble. The cracks are starting to show. And with what eventually happens during the battle, this is kind of an early indication to Jake that his decisions are starting to have bigger and bigger consequences.
The whole Civil War subplot did nothing for me. Not a thing. Firstly—and there would be more letters about this, I’m sure—not into the Civil War. Canadian and actually a little bit disturbed by the American obsession with the Civil War. Like, I get that your country splitting asunder over slavery was a big dramatic thing, but the actual amount you focus on it sometimes seems unseemly. Secondly, this is a very interesting but utterly unprecedented plot device in Animorphs history. I’m reminded, once again, of a long-running TV series: once you get into the last few seasons, you start to experiment and play more with the format of the show, both because you can and also because you want to shake things up. Animorphs has never done something like this before. For me, though, the end effect is that it feels like The Resistance was half a novel, too short even for the lengths of these books, and so they decided to bolt on the Civil War story just to make it long enough to publish.
There’s a good and important story here in terms of our entry into the final arc of the series. Nevertheless, it is bogged down by unnecessary narrative flourishes and an indecisive commitment to the tone of humour (should it be black, glib, optimistic, cynical?). The Resistance is not a misstep by any means, but neither does it stick the landing.
Next time, we take a break from these usual adventures to bring you the final Chronicles story. We’ll finally learn the true history of the Ellimist (or at least, a history. Dude could just be lying to us). Stay tuned.
Letters complaining about my attitude towards beavers can be sent to:
Complaints Department, Ben’s Reviews
123 Ben How Could You Lane
Beaverton, ON
P7H 5J3
My reviews of Animorphs:
← #46: The Deception | The Ellimist Chronicles →
Occasionally I like to imagine how a book might have been pitched if the pitch meeting involved lots of drinking. (Disclaimer: I have never been drunk. Maybe beavers are inherently sobering.)
The Resistance is such a weird instalment in the Animorphs series. On the one hand, the fate of the free Hork-Bajir colony is in the Animorphs’ hands, and in many ways, this marks the start of the proper, open war between the Yeerks and the resistance. On the other hand … beavers. And space hippie hikers. Oh, and an epistolary story-within-a-story of a Civil War ancestor of Jake’s.
Look, I’d probably get letters for this if anyone other than Julie read and cared about these Animorphs reviews, and I don’t mean to denigrate the proud and mighty beaver. It’s a great animal. And the Animorphs’ plan to dam the river in such a way as to flood out the invading Yeerk forces is extremely clever and a good example of “big picture” strategy in the larger battles they will now have to fight. Yet the way it’s played in The Resistance is quite comical, from the acquiring of the beaver DNA to the Animorphs teaming up with the two actual beavers. The humour is probably there to offset the grimdark atmosphere of this hopelessly outmatched battle that’s going to happen—still, these parts of the book feel like they belong much earlier in the series.
Similarly, Jake’s interactions with the hikers who eventually decide to join the resistance are both hilarious and bleak in their outlook. I love that the Animorphs have just decided, after the events of the previous book, to go, “Fuck it, we’re just going to talk to humans in morph if we have to”. Secrecy is starting to crumble. The cracks are starting to show. And with what eventually happens during the battle, this is kind of an early indication to Jake that his decisions are starting to have bigger and bigger consequences.
The whole Civil War subplot did nothing for me. Not a thing. Firstly—and there would be more letters about this, I’m sure—not into the Civil War. Canadian and actually a little bit disturbed by the American obsession with the Civil War. Like, I get that your country splitting asunder over slavery was a big dramatic thing, but the actual amount you focus on it sometimes seems unseemly. Secondly, this is a very interesting but utterly unprecedented plot device in Animorphs history. I’m reminded, once again, of a long-running TV series: once you get into the last few seasons, you start to experiment and play more with the format of the show, both because you can and also because you want to shake things up. Animorphs has never done something like this before. For me, though, the end effect is that it feels like The Resistance was half a novel, too short even for the lengths of these books, and so they decided to bolt on the Civil War story just to make it long enough to publish.
There’s a good and important story here in terms of our entry into the final arc of the series. Nevertheless, it is bogged down by unnecessary narrative flourishes and an indecisive commitment to the tone of humour (should it be black, glib, optimistic, cynical?). The Resistance is not a misstep by any means, but neither does it stick the landing.
Next time, we take a break from these usual adventures to bring you the final Chronicles story. We’ll finally learn the true history of the Ellimist (or at least, a history. Dude could just be lying to us). Stay tuned.
Letters complaining about my attitude towards beavers can be sent to:
Complaints Department, Ben’s Reviews
123 Ben How Could You Lane
Beaverton, ON
P7H 5J3
My reviews of Animorphs:
← #46: The Deception | The Ellimist Chronicles →
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
July 5, 2021
A lot of the reviews that dislike this book are making fun of the beavers (why? Beavers are... fine? I've got no issue with them. Not every morph can be glamorous. The fact that "all creatures great and small" are highly evolved to fit a specific niche is a big thing in the series), or are annoyed by the civil war aspect. That's not me. If anything, I liked the civil war parts significantly more than Jake's parts.
(Well-- ONE part of it annoyed me. They kept trying to mesh the two stories, when they don't naturally mesh at all. You probably shouldn't compare real Black people, real freed slaves, to giant, knife-covered aliens like "humanity is INHERENTLY intolerant. THEY'LL NEVER ACCEPT THESE DINOSAUR ALIENS." That's... A little tasteless.)
(Well-- ONE part of it annoyed me. They kept trying to mesh the two stories, when they don't naturally mesh at all. You probably shouldn't compare real Black people, real freed slaves, to giant, knife-covered aliens like "humanity is INHERENTLY intolerant. THEY'LL NEVER ACCEPT THESE DINOSAUR ALIENS." That's... A little tasteless.)
Also, one might question but that's just being nitpicky.
No, what bothered me about this book was how badly written it was. And the goddamn Trekkies. And all these big important things that SHOULD be climactic, like the animorphs CHOOSING TO REVEAL THEMSELVES TO HUMANITY, was presented in such an offhand way. "Oh, these campers won't move out of the way? GUESS WE HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO TRANSFORM IN FRONT OF THEM after 46+ books of trying to avoid doing just that!" No thought! No planning!
Dude??? Maybe go into the woods, morph rhino (in case they're armed), then come back and chase them out? Come on!!! This should be a HUGE MOMENT, but it's just. There and then gone.
Also 'there and then gone' are Jake's feelings regarding Ax's betrayal in the previous book. UM? THIS IS A HUGE DEAL. You're not even gonna have some thoughts about it? Some lingering awkwardness? No??? He briefly mentions it in one paragraph and then it's NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN. WHAT THE HELL. Pretty sure if my friend tried to destroy everyone I ever loved, my entire city, in a nuclear explosion (AND MY OTHER FRIENDS SUPPORTED HIS DECISION), I'D HAVE SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT IT. At the very least, I'd feel completely unable to trust them anymore, because they've proven that if they don't like my orders, they'll just play God and take matters into their own hands!
And can we talk about how annoying it was when Marco was like "you shouldn't have told the campers about us!" and Jake answered, "yeah, well, you told your dad first!" NOT THE SAME THING! Real Jake wouldn't be that stupid.
And other things, like "Oh we can morph jeans and shoes now. Cool." WHAT? When did that happen??? BOOK, YOU MUST EXPLAIN THESE DEVELOPMENTS. That's how books work!!! This is a big deal! And why can Toby just TALK TO TREES? Even on her home planet, trees able to communicate were very particular, special trees!
Ugh; this was all just disappointing and underwhelming. I feel cheated out of drama and emotions.
(All that said: I really didn't mind the civil war portions. I just think they should have been in a different book. It was too rushed and it didn't fit thematically as well as the author wanted it to. I thought the historical war stuff was better integrated in Megamorphs #3, or even Animorphs #31.)
December 8, 2020
We still at moving at a rapid clip, but for some reason at least 1/3 of this book features passages from one of Jake’s ancestor’s journals, in which a civil war battle is compared to the Animorphs battle in this book, in which they have to protect the Hork Bajir valley from the Yeerks, who have discovered its location. However, the direct correlation to the Hork Bajir in the journal entries are slaves, and that’s a mighty uncomfortable and inaccurate depiction that made me grit my teeth. At the time of publication (2000, I believe) it must have read better, but this definitely hasn’t aged well.
The Animorphs legit tell a group of campers they have to leave or else they’re going to be in the middle of an attack, and they actually decide to help. It’s a ballsy (and dumb, tbh, since these twits keep trying to take photos and acting like they’re ACTUALLY Star Trek aliens, which... wha? Why trust your deepest secret to THESE people?!) move, but they need all the help they can get, and with the help of beaver morphs (yes... beavers) they create a flood to drive out the Yeerks. Yay!
Also, I guess they can actually morph clothing now? Did they learn that from Estrid? I’m so confused.
Oh! And it’s pretty lame there’s so little follow up from the last book, except that Ax hasn’t been meeting Jake’s eyes and Jake seems disappointed, but glad that he didn’t have to make the decision. And he doesn’t even reflect on the fact that everyone save for Cassie helped Ax, so...... Disappointing.
The Animorphs legit tell a group of campers they have to leave or else they’re going to be in the middle of an attack, and they actually decide to help. It’s a ballsy (and dumb, tbh, since these twits keep trying to take photos and acting like they’re ACTUALLY Star Trek aliens, which... wha? Why trust your deepest secret to THESE people?!) move, but they need all the help they can get, and with the help of beaver morphs (yes... beavers) they create a flood to drive out the Yeerks. Yay!
Also, I guess they can actually morph clothing now? Did they learn that from Estrid? I’m so confused.
Oh! And it’s pretty lame there’s so little follow up from the last book, except that Ax hasn’t been meeting Jake’s eyes and Jake seems disappointed, but glad that he didn’t have to make the decision. And he doesn’t even reflect on the fact that everyone save for Cassie helped Ax, so...... Disappointing.
April 11, 2023
Uhhh this book tried to challenge racism but this ain't it sis.
January 26, 2025
*** 4.33 ***
For a children's book of its type and time, this was very well written. Loved the parallels between the futuristic battle of our main characters and the memoir of the great uncle from the Civil War... The series is obviously starting to wind down to its end and it is doing so very engagingly so far 😃👍
For a children's book of its type and time, this was very well written. Loved the parallels between the futuristic battle of our main characters and the memoir of the great uncle from the Civil War... The series is obviously starting to wind down to its end and it is doing so very engagingly so far 😃👍
October 20, 2022
Ehhhh. It's been a minute since I've read a Jake book. I read the books too sporadically. I was looking forward to hearing from the fearless leader once again. But this was a major bummer. Jake had to clean the basement and finds this diary from his relative who was a union soldier. And despite just leaving it behind, the book alternates chapters from this journal and Jake. Not going to lie, I skipped the journal chapters because like, I know how the Civil War ended? I care more about the Yeerk War. And it was an interesting enough battle I just felt the pacing was off.
August 7, 2014
The forces of Earth the rescue! How are the Yeerks going to handle it now that they are going to have to battle out in the open? And the unconventional ideas the core group of Animorphs has is really amazing and ballsy. It's weird that this kind of stuff gets through as children's books.
Notable moments and inconsistencies:
This book is ghostwritten by Ellen Geroux.
This is the first book that doesn't give a whole first chapter of exposition, and then some, to explain the Yeerk invasion, the morphing process and its origins, and the group's motivation. Seems that at #47 in the series, the publishers assumed people who are reading it probably know the story by now. However, since it goes back to the pattern of giving a summary/introduction in the very next book, this appears to be an anomaly.
The narration makes a point of claiming that they'd learned to morph "decent clothes," and how they looked a lot saner than they would have if they'd been standing around in spandex. That doesn't appear to be the case in any of the later books, since even in the last book morphing outfits are still in use.
At one point Ax has two lines of spoken dialogue rendered in quotation marks instead of thought-speak. But there is no reason explained for why he would be standing around in human morph at that point, especially since no mention of his demorphing is mentioned and he is speaking in thought-speak very shortly after the spoken conversation. (It happens when Ax is discussing his experience in fluid mechanics, in chapter thirteen.)
The word "its" is used once when "it's" was supposed to be used ("Its a long story"), and on four occasions "Negroes" is misspelled "Negros." "Calloused" is used when it really should be "callused."
It's not really clear why some of Isaiah's chapters have quite a lot of present tense in them, but also switch into past tense often.
Obviously capture of a once-free Hork-Bajir would endanger the valley, but nothing is said about whether the "Andalite bandits" would have their identities revealed. If that's not a piece of information the Yeerks now know, then the captured Hork-Bajir must not have known that they were humans. Do the Hork-Bajir generally not know?
Tobias is asked to go spy on the advancing Yeerks at one time and claims he may not have seen particularly well because his hawk eyes are not great at night. Considering most of the others have owl morphs, it seems very curious that none of them did this job, though at least in this situation it didn't end up mattering.
Notable moments and inconsistencies:
This book is ghostwritten by Ellen Geroux.
This is the first book that doesn't give a whole first chapter of exposition, and then some, to explain the Yeerk invasion, the morphing process and its origins, and the group's motivation. Seems that at #47 in the series, the publishers assumed people who are reading it probably know the story by now. However, since it goes back to the pattern of giving a summary/introduction in the very next book, this appears to be an anomaly.
The narration makes a point of claiming that they'd learned to morph "decent clothes," and how they looked a lot saner than they would have if they'd been standing around in spandex. That doesn't appear to be the case in any of the later books, since even in the last book morphing outfits are still in use.
At one point Ax has two lines of spoken dialogue rendered in quotation marks instead of thought-speak. But there is no reason explained for why he would be standing around in human morph at that point, especially since no mention of his demorphing is mentioned and he is speaking in thought-speak very shortly after the spoken conversation. (It happens when Ax is discussing his experience in fluid mechanics, in chapter thirteen.)
The word "its" is used once when "it's" was supposed to be used ("Its a long story"), and on four occasions "Negroes" is misspelled "Negros." "Calloused" is used when it really should be "callused."
It's not really clear why some of Isaiah's chapters have quite a lot of present tense in them, but also switch into past tense often.
Obviously capture of a once-free Hork-Bajir would endanger the valley, but nothing is said about whether the "Andalite bandits" would have their identities revealed. If that's not a piece of information the Yeerks now know, then the captured Hork-Bajir must not have known that they were humans. Do the Hork-Bajir generally not know?
Tobias is asked to go spy on the advancing Yeerks at one time and claims he may not have seen particularly well because his hawk eyes are not great at night. Considering most of the others have owl morphs, it seems very curious that none of them did this job, though at least in this situation it didn't end up mattering.
April 16, 2019
To correlate Hork-Bajir with ex-slaves during the civil war is ... a choice. There's some logic in it, and it's not as egregiously handled as it could be, but like the WWII analogies in The Conspiracy (Book 31), it's too complex an issue with too many real and present effects for even this pretty complex MG series to handle. That aside: I love a good last stand story, appreciate exploring the agency of the Hork-Bajir (who need some, given their characterization is largely "a little dumb"), and both the strength and limits in Jake's leadership are interesting. But the alternating historical/modern PoV is underwhelming--this should be a ramp up towards the finale, not a historical cul-de-sac with a character we'll never see again, and the diary conceit is faintly ridiculous (especially the ending!).
January 28, 2016
A Hork-Bajir from the free colony has been recaptured and infested by the Yeerks. Jake is reading his ancestor Isaiah Fitzhenry’s journal from the Civil War. The Hork-Bajir must fight for their lives and their valley. Isaiah Fitzhenry must fight to protect his soldiers and the nearby town. The parallels between present and past are clear, and meaningful.
While the actual “Animorphs” story in this book is barely half of the length, the value that the non-Animorphs story holds to Jake as a leader, to his character, is great. Ever since Jake had to decide between saving his father and killing his brother, many of his books have involved some sort of meaningful time-travel, alternate history, or historical reflection. These approaches give us a very different way of getting inside Jake’s head, and how much he has had to mature in this war, and how he has changed. Seeing him in these very different situations tells us considerably more about his character instead of the Jake we see in just the primary Animorphs storyline build up (whether he is narrating or not). We get the dichotomy of seeing what Jake does with the Animorphs, seeing what he wishes he could do/be, and seeing what he and/or others did or could have done in history or alternate lives. It is a good way to remind readers that our circumstances can really affect and shape us, even if we want to push back against those changes whether it be in seriousness or in naïveté.
The other half of the book takes us back to December 1864, with Jake’s ancestor Lieutenant Isaiah Fitzhenry at 20 years old coming into command of a small contingent of Union soldiers. Fitzhenry has to lead them against a Confederate commander, Forrest, who is approaching them for an attack with his considerably larger force. A young man thrust into a leadership position in a battle where the odds are stacked high against him (like Jake), where the locals do not offer fighting help (the rest of humanity), but a small group of free slaves offers their help in the coming battle and takes it as their personal battle (the Hork-Bajir).
My only real gripe with this book:
I choose whether to die a free man fighting for what’s mine, or a coward enslaved by fear.
Yeah, morphing was gross and uncomfortable. But it had been a long time since I remembered it was also very, very cool. – page 82
While the actual “Animorphs” story in this book is barely half of the length, the value that the non-Animorphs story holds to Jake as a leader, to his character, is great. Ever since Jake had to decide between saving his father and killing his brother, many of his books have involved some sort of meaningful time-travel, alternate history, or historical reflection. These approaches give us a very different way of getting inside Jake’s head, and how much he has had to mature in this war, and how he has changed. Seeing him in these very different situations tells us considerably more about his character instead of the Jake we see in just the primary Animorphs storyline build up (whether he is narrating or not). We get the dichotomy of seeing what Jake does with the Animorphs, seeing what he wishes he could do/be, and seeing what he and/or others did or could have done in history or alternate lives. It is a good way to remind readers that our circumstances can really affect and shape us, even if we want to push back against those changes whether it be in seriousness or in naïveté.
The other half of the book takes us back to December 1864, with Jake’s ancestor Lieutenant Isaiah Fitzhenry at 20 years old coming into command of a small contingent of Union soldiers. Fitzhenry has to lead them against a Confederate commander, Forrest, who is approaching them for an attack with his considerably larger force. A young man thrust into a leadership position in a battle where the odds are stacked high against him (like Jake), where the locals do not offer fighting help (the rest of humanity), but a small group of free slaves offers their help in the coming battle and takes it as their personal battle (the Hork-Bajir).
My only real gripe with this book:
I choose whether to die a free man fighting for what’s mine, or a coward enslaved by fear.
Yeah, morphing was gross and uncomfortable. But it had been a long time since I remembered it was also very, very cool. – page 82
August 12, 2017
I was not super into the Civil War diary parts, but they were alright. I do agree with several people who have said that it would be interesting to see what happened after Marco and his dad died, and how the rest of the Animorphs act at home, pretending to deal with it, especially Jake. And the free Hork-Bajir who was recaptured should have been a big security blow, as most likely he would have seen at least some of the humans there, Marco and his parents for sure. Or perhaps, Visser 1 is simply so arrogant he assumed that they were of no consequence, and he would capture or kill them in the battle for the valley. One thing that keeps annoying me is thought speak in human form. I distinctly remember Ax stating that he could not because of the fact that humans do speak, so there fore he could not thought speak in that form, but yet in the past several books, both he and Tobias have thought spoke in human morph. Perhaps that is the key? Since it is a morph, they can? None of the others have, that I was able to find out.
It is also interesting to see Jake becoming more and more angry at having the burden of not just leadership, but of fighting thrust on him. His relationships are becoming very strained, he snaps at his mom, does not know what to do with his brother and he uses everyone of his friends without regret. It's also interesting to see how he, Marco and Rachel are all agreed to of what is the most expedient and useful thing to win but yet they all draw the line very differently, and sometimes where one would usually step over, they don't like it when the other does. As Ax said in the last book, "A morality of convenience"
It is also interesting to see Jake becoming more and more angry at having the burden of not just leadership, but of fighting thrust on him. His relationships are becoming very strained, he snaps at his mom, does not know what to do with his brother and he uses everyone of his friends without regret. It's also interesting to see how he, Marco and Rachel are all agreed to of what is the most expedient and useful thing to win but yet they all draw the line very differently, and sometimes where one would usually step over, they don't like it when the other does. As Ax said in the last book, "A morality of convenience"
Read
May 30, 2024i came, i saw, i conquered skipped all the fitzhenry stuff. nearly spat out my drink when the kids were like "what are you, official trekkies???" and the girl came back with "yeah we're on our annual camping trip" 💀
May 31, 2024
Watch out Eric Larson, there is a new civil war narrative on the block
December 30, 2015
This is really 3.5 stars, but I'll round up to 4 because Jake.
I was surprised by how much I liked this book--I've never been a Civil War buff and don't really connect to those narratives. However, this worked really well for me because the last couple of books have been pretty grinding and having a different angle helped create some emotional space.
So the Yeerks have captured a free Hork-Bajir and are now coming for the valley. We've all sort of known this would happen; the Ellimist can only do so much, after all. I agree with Stephanie's complaint and am curious about how this betrayal is going to play out in the remaining books. I also really, really appreciated the present-but-downplayed aspects of the continually-rupturing relationships within the Animorphs: Jake's complications with Ax after Ax's unilateral decision in the last book ; Marco's hesitant wariness now that his parents are safe; Rachel's continual slide into hyperfocused violence. Introducing the Civil War flashbacks of Jake's also too-young relative pull these even clearer into focus.
The parallels are a bit obvious, true, and I think this was one of the few books in this series where I was really, really aware of it being YA and taking advantage of a teachable moment (I was having flashbacks of my own to reading Civil War fiction for 8th grade English class). But that second point of view also closed Jake even further off, and I think that was a brilliant move by Applegate & Co. Jake is becoming all general and nothing else, and having this book not completely focused on him puts him that much further out of reach of us readers just as he is to everyone in his world. I don't know if that was intentional, but that's how it felt to me, and it breaks my heart even as I marvel at the ways I don't even see him as a kid anymore.
A note about the campers:
The ending felt less deus-ex-machina-y than a lot of the Animorphs endings do, of which I was quite glad. This series is so not going to end well. Gearing up for much weeping and gnashing of teeth.
I was surprised by how much I liked this book--I've never been a Civil War buff and don't really connect to those narratives. However, this worked really well for me because the last couple of books have been pretty grinding and having a different angle helped create some emotional space.
So the Yeerks have captured a free Hork-Bajir and are now coming for the valley. We've all sort of known this would happen; the Ellimist can only do so much, after all. I agree with Stephanie's complaint and am curious about how this betrayal is going to play out in the remaining books. I also really, really appreciated the present-but-downplayed aspects of the continually-rupturing relationships within the Animorphs: Jake's complications with Ax after Ax's unilateral decision in the last book ; Marco's hesitant wariness now that his parents are safe; Rachel's continual slide into hyperfocused violence. Introducing the Civil War flashbacks of Jake's also too-young relative pull these even clearer into focus.
The parallels are a bit obvious, true, and I think this was one of the few books in this series where I was really, really aware of it being YA and taking advantage of a teachable moment (I was having flashbacks of my own to reading Civil War fiction for 8th grade English class). But that second point of view also closed Jake even further off, and I think that was a brilliant move by Applegate & Co. Jake is becoming all general and nothing else, and having this book not completely focused on him puts him that much further out of reach of us readers just as he is to everyone in his world. I don't know if that was intentional, but that's how it felt to me, and it breaks my heart even as I marvel at the ways I don't even see him as a kid anymore.
A note about the campers:
The ending felt less deus-ex-machina-y than a lot of the Animorphs endings do, of which I was quite glad. This series is so not going to end well. Gearing up for much weeping and gnashing of teeth.
September 23, 2018
The Resistance Nope nope nope. Why do I need a parallel civil war storyline in this book? Oh, that's right. I don't. Jake's storyline could have stood on its own. I've had nine Jake books before this dealing with his struggle as the leader of the Animorphs. I don't need a distant relative of his to highlight the difficulties Jake is facing in this book.
More under the cut.
Not to mention the fact that the story is drawing comparisons between a simple (fictional) alien race and black people... how did no one point out that this might be problematic?
Why are none of the Animorphs concerned that Visser One now knows their secret? If a free Hork-Bajir is taken, the Yeerks will know they're just a bunch of kids. Yet that never comes up once in the book. At the end, Jake just goes home to his Controller brother and nothing bad happens to him....
The Animorphs can finally morph clothes, but then Tobias makes a weird remark about their morphing outfits... If they're wearing normal clothes, they won't look weird (though there's no mention of shoes. Maybe Tobias is worried because they're barefooted on the top of a mountain?).
Fitzhenry took the time to write a journal entry while he was dying on the battlefield? Really?
These new younger cover models look creepy.
More under the cut.
Not to mention the fact that the story is drawing comparisons between a simple (fictional) alien race and black people... how did no one point out that this might be problematic?
Why are none of the Animorphs concerned that Visser One now knows their secret? If a free Hork-Bajir is taken, the Yeerks will know they're just a bunch of kids. Yet that never comes up once in the book. At the end, Jake just goes home to his Controller brother and nothing bad happens to him....
The Animorphs can finally morph clothes, but then Tobias makes a weird remark about their morphing outfits... If they're wearing normal clothes, they won't look weird (though there's no mention of shoes. Maybe Tobias is worried because they're barefooted on the top of a mountain?).
Fitzhenry took the time to write a journal entry while he was dying on the battlefield? Really?
These new younger cover models look creepy.
July 29, 2022
“The end is near.”
Jake finds writings from a distant Great Uncle that fought in the Civil War and I just…I’m sorry but I couldn’t care less about a major Yeerk battle being interrupted by the story of some Union soldier fighting really hard with the other white people to let a few Black men be soldiers while said Black men shout, “if only my massa could see me now!” until being broken down and scared into being somewhat prepared soldiers. I don’t understand what purpose this Great Uncle storyline was meant to serve. What was Applegate hoping to achieve? What did she hope the readers’ reactions would be to this?
It seems like Applegate had about half of an idea for a book and tried to cushion it with a random historical story so we wouldn’t notice. And the actual story we got was so unnecessary like ???
A Hork-Bajir gets captured by the Yeerks which means the Valley is soon to be under attack so it’s time to morph into beavers, recruit random hikers in the woods, and…learn about the Civil War before getting back to flooding the Yeerks ?
Why wasn’t this just a novella ? Or merged into another book ??
CW: war, violence, death, grief, slavery, murder, racism (specifically anti-Black racism), dated language surrounding race
Jake finds writings from a distant Great Uncle that fought in the Civil War and I just…I’m sorry but I couldn’t care less about a major Yeerk battle being interrupted by the story of some Union soldier fighting really hard with the other white people to let a few Black men be soldiers while said Black men shout, “if only my massa could see me now!” until being broken down and scared into being somewhat prepared soldiers. I don’t understand what purpose this Great Uncle storyline was meant to serve. What was Applegate hoping to achieve? What did she hope the readers’ reactions would be to this?
It seems like Applegate had about half of an idea for a book and tried to cushion it with a random historical story so we wouldn’t notice. And the actual story we got was so unnecessary like ???
A Hork-Bajir gets captured by the Yeerks which means the Valley is soon to be under attack so it’s time to morph into beavers, recruit random hikers in the woods, and…learn about the Civil War before getting back to flooding the Yeerks ?
Why wasn’t this just a novella ? Or merged into another book ??
CW: war, violence, death, grief, slavery, murder, racism (specifically anti-Black racism), dated language surrounding race
June 21, 2022
It's bad. Plot mediocre. Civilians attempt to help and it goes badly. Bad. Really boring fight scene. Bad. Everyone losing their minds over the war effort gets less fun to read by the book and this isn't made up for by anything. Bad. Isiah Fitzhenry's interventions are at best worthless to a point that's been hammered in by Jake's male relatives like, five times, and at worst, brings up yet again and exacerbates by direct comparison the issues I have with Hork-Bajir writing, even before getting into the actual prose and the accent I refuse to repeat here. It's very bad. Actively racist. Every other book in the series does not have this problem. I not only want everyone to skip this book, I wish this book was not part of the series. Please do not read. Cheapens the rest of the story.
June 26, 2022
Gotta respect the dude who was writing in his diary while bleeding out on a battlefield. Just imagining him, pen in hand, as the Rebels are riding by on their horses.
Tbh I may have liked this one better if it had been 10 books ago, but the Civil War parallels were too gimmicky and pointless for so late in the series (also, hilarity aside, it makes no sense that the journal ended where it did).
The current storyline tho is solid, it's interesting to see Jake try to handle commanding a whole battlefield rather than just the 6 of them, and thought that dynamic could have been more interesting to play with.
Tbh I may have liked this one better if it had been 10 books ago, but the Civil War parallels were too gimmicky and pointless for so late in the series (also, hilarity aside, it makes no sense that the journal ended where it did).
The current storyline tho is solid, it's interesting to see Jake try to handle commanding a whole battlefield rather than just the 6 of them, and thought that dynamic could have been more interesting to play with.
November 29, 2020
Original Review at Jaunts & Haunts
4/5
I gave this book four stars!
Man, things are seriously continuing to amp up since #45, and I'm loving all of these crazy adventures.
This time around we're in Jake's POV. He's just received some seriously terrible news that threatens the Free Hork-Bajir colony, and they have to decide whether to evacuate or fight. At the same time, the Animorphs are wrestling with the idea of exposure in an effort to get the word out about the Yeerks and hopefully increase their numbers. It's a very trying time full of tension, and I loved every minute of it.
Jake was portrayed extremely well. Half of the narrative is from his great (not sure how many greats) uncle's journal entries from the civil war with the other half Jake, and there was a great parallel that connected the two narratives. Being a leader is tough enough, but now the choices they are making are even more insane. Jake made some big decisions in this book, and I believe he rose to the occasion. Brownie points for great leadership.
The others were portrayed really well, especially Marco's little jokes. Him batting his eyelashes at Ax and saying how much he loves when he talks all smart like made me laugh out loud.
The plot was great. Naturally, I love the Free Hork-Bajir colony, so I was invested in their survival and had to know what happened. I will say that Jake's narrative was more entertaining than his great uncle's but the importance of both narratives was there. The stakes are super high, especially with the Animorphs questioning just how far they should go to rally their numbers. I love that they're finally asking these big questions that matter, but maybe they should've asked these question earlier? Just an observation.
The writing was superb. I pretty much read this in one go because I was hooked from page one.
I did have to take off a star for inconsistencies present in this novel, but if it wasn't for that this would definitely be a five star read.
This was a great continuation of the series and I can't wait to see what happens next!
4/5
I gave this book four stars!
Man, things are seriously continuing to amp up since #45, and I'm loving all of these crazy adventures.
This time around we're in Jake's POV. He's just received some seriously terrible news that threatens the Free Hork-Bajir colony, and they have to decide whether to evacuate or fight. At the same time, the Animorphs are wrestling with the idea of exposure in an effort to get the word out about the Yeerks and hopefully increase their numbers. It's a very trying time full of tension, and I loved every minute of it.
Jake was portrayed extremely well. Half of the narrative is from his great (not sure how many greats) uncle's journal entries from the civil war with the other half Jake, and there was a great parallel that connected the two narratives. Being a leader is tough enough, but now the choices they are making are even more insane. Jake made some big decisions in this book, and I believe he rose to the occasion. Brownie points for great leadership.
The others were portrayed really well, especially Marco's little jokes. Him batting his eyelashes at Ax and saying how much he loves when he talks all smart like made me laugh out loud.
The plot was great. Naturally, I love the Free Hork-Bajir colony, so I was invested in their survival and had to know what happened. I will say that Jake's narrative was more entertaining than his great uncle's but the importance of both narratives was there. The stakes are super high, especially with the Animorphs questioning just how far they should go to rally their numbers. I love that they're finally asking these big questions that matter, but maybe they should've asked these question earlier? Just an observation.
The writing was superb. I pretty much read this in one go because I was hooked from page one.
I did have to take off a star for inconsistencies present in this novel, but if it wasn't for that this would definitely be a five star read.
This was a great continuation of the series and I can't wait to see what happens next!
April 30, 2023
The time jumps were kind of jarring in this one but it was cool
November 2, 2023
Of all the things I expected from an Animorphs book, it wasn’t civil war flashbacks but we’ve seen weirder so I guess I have no choice but to accept it
March 13, 2025
OK i get it the Hork Bajir (the distinctly dangerous/unintelligent aliens) are slaves. I see the attempt at a historical comparison but this one comes out rough.
May 8, 2023
Not sure I loved the civil war parallels throughout, but it did drive home the idea that the cost for any cause is great.
P.S. Give MacLeod Andrews all the awards for his sound effects in the audiobooks. This is applicable to every single one of Jake's stories. Stellar performance every time.
P.S. Give MacLeod Andrews all the awards for his sound effects in the audiobooks. This is applicable to every single one of Jake's stories. Stellar performance every time.
October 31, 2023
(originally reviewed at
thelibraryladies.com
)
Narrator: Jake
Plot: Why. Why would we waste one of the Jake’s last precious books on this steaming pile? It’s only half a Jake book at best, and even that half is so, so not awesome. I think I could have resigned myself to this kind of nonsense if we were still in the doldrums that was much of the books in the 30-range, but here?? Now?! No.
This is the perfect image of rage and sadness at the same time. My feelings for this book so well expressed.
Look, I’m too mad to even detail the Civil War plot. Let’s be honest, I skim read all of these sections. Not only did I not care one bit, but the parallels that were being drawn were so on the nose that it was just uncomfortable at times. And also unnecessary. The series as a whole has always done an excellent job of presenting complicated wartime decisions without the need to prop those conversations up against some historical event. So, here is the plot description for the half of the book that was, you know, actually an Animorphs book.
Jake returns home, exhausted from yet another mission. On top of that, after Marco’s exposure and their exploits on the military ship, the team is in the middle of a serious debate about how/when/or if they should make their war public. Everyone is grumpy, and Jake doesn’t know what is the right choice. His mom greets him with a chores list to clear out the basement. Trudging down, he begins going through boxes and discovers a journal from a past relative who served in the Union during the Civil War. [Here enters the alternating storyline that I will actively try to forget even happened.]
Cassie calls and through code informs Jake that he’s needed at the free Hork Bajir valley. Once he and the others arrive, they are told that the worst has happened: a couple of Hork Bajir warriors have been captured and will have been infested by now, exposing the location of the valley to the Yeerks. Jake and the Animorphs immediately insist that the Hork Bajir must flee the valley, but Toby insists that they want to stay and fight, even in the face of what has to be insurmountable odds. Once it becomes clear that they will not be moved from this position, the Animorphs get down to trying to plan their defense.
As they explore around the valley, they come across a beaver dam and pond. From there, Jake gets an idea: if they build up the dam even further, they can use the pooled water as a timed released to flood out the invading Yeerk forces. The team also discovers a group of campers in the area. The team split up to get to work with several of them morphing beavers and starting to build up the dam. Tobias and Jake head out to try and get the campers to move out.
They decide to approach the campers in their human form with some lame stories about incoming weather. Not surprisingly, the campers don’t believe them. They then decide to just forget it all and morph in front of them. Luckily for them, the campers turn out to be huge Stark Trek nerds and are immediately down with the idea of believing a wild story about invading aliens. Some of them take off, but a small group (a father and his two teenage kids) decide they want to fight alongside the Animorphs and head back to the Hork Bajir valley. There, they join in an assembly line where the Hork Bajir are building spears to fight against the Yeerks.
Finally, the attack comes. They manage to hold back the first line of Hork Bajir, but shortly follows Visser One (Three) himself, in the morph he used in the first book when he chased the Animorphs out of the Yeerk pool, along with a group of Taxxons. Jake frantically signals for the dam to be released as free Hork Bajir fall all around the fighting Animorphs. Tiger!Jake ends up in a one-on-one fight with Visser One, but luckily the flood of water hits right when things start looking bad for him. He manages to swim his way out, and Visser One and the remaining Taxxons retreat.
Knowing that the Yeerks will likely try again, Toby prepares the remaining Hork Bajir to flee into the woods where they will remain until the end of the war. Marco’s parents will accompany them. As for the campers, the dad died in the attack and the two teenage children are shell-shocked. Jake and the Animorphs head home, with Jake reflecting that all they can ever do is what they think is best in the moment.
Our Fearless Leader: The beginning of this book is really great for highlighting just how exhausted Jake has become at this point. He mentions the fact that the group is barely making it through school and are all running on empty. To then get home and be presented with a list of chores…you can see how it would almost be enough to break him. Especially on top of the looming debate about going public.
There are some good moments between him and Tom. Tom even slips up a few times, making comments under his breath that would be suspicious if Jake wasn’t already in the know. It goes to show that the war is beginning to take a toll on the Yeerks as well; everyone’s guard is beginning to fall as things start to come to a head.
As for the rest of the book, we see a few good leadership moments from Jake, especially with his idea about the beaver dam. But we also see a lot of moments where things and people are definitely out of his control. He reflects on the choices that Ax made in the last book and has to come up against Toby and the Hork Bajir when they refuse to follow his direction to flee the valley.
Xena, Warrior Princess: Rachel is, of course, pro to the idea of the team going more public. She also uses her grizzly morph to help get the dam built more quickly when the beavers have a hard time moving some of the bigger logs. Not much else, other than that.
A Hawk’s Life: Tobias is with Jake when they confront the campers, so I equally blame him for the sheer stupidity of this move. I will detail my feelings on this whole “plan” later, but essentially I think it was a pretty terrible choice on both of their parts. I also wish we had gotten more from Tobias with the debate with Toby and the other Hork Bajir about the future of their life in the valley. He’s the closest to this group, so it always feels like a missed opportunity when he’s not more at the center of any discussion or interaction with them.
Peace, Love, and Animals: Cassie is the one to wade into the beaver pond and captures a beaver for them to acquire. Not sure how believable her method is, but if anyone was going to do it, it would be her.
The Comic Relief: Marco, as usual, is the only reasonable one in the group when it comes to the nonsense that is the idea that the Hork Bajir want to stay and fight and the fact that Tobias and Jake revealed themselves to the campers. The entire time, he repeatedly points out that they have no chance of winning and fighting simply for pride or something is just a way to die more quickly.
E.T./Ax Phone Home: I have to say, one of the bigger disappointments of this book is the way that we get very little follow-up on the monumental decisions that Ax made in the last book. Jake pretty much says that they’ve both kind of silently agreed to just not talk about it. Jake admits that he is secretly glad that Ax took the decision out of his hands, but he’s also still mad that Ax would disobey him so directly. For his part, we see that Ax won’t meet Jake’s eyes and clearly still has strong feelings about the entire experience. And that’s about all we get. There is zero reference to the fact that Tobias, Rachel, and Marco all agreed with Ax’s plan and helped him execute it as well, which has to be almost as notable to Jake.
Best (?) Body Horror Moment: Not really a lot. The beaver morph was pretty straightforward, as far as morphing mechanics go. The fight between tiger!Jake and Visser One is pretty brutal, however. Poor tiger!Jake, always with the neck injuries!
Couples Watch!: Really nothing at all. There were a few nice references to how well Marco’s parents are doing with their life in the valley, but Jake and Cassie don’t have much and neither do Rachel and Tobias.
If Only Visser Three had Mustache to Twirl: It’s a cool call-back to have Visser One come after them in the same morph he used in book #1. I think this may be one of the first times we’ve ever seen him re-use a morph? I’ve always thought it was strange that he didn’t have preferred battle morphs in the past, but if he was going to have one, this one seems like a solid choice. The only reason it didn’t work way back in the first book was due to its size and the small tunnels in the Yeerk Pool. Out in the open, it seems like a powerful choice. He gets in his usual corny lines, so it’s nice to know that the promotion has done nothing to improve (?) his campy villain mode.
Adult Ugly Crying at a Middle Grade Book: The whole decision with the campers, especially when you look at the end result which is two teenagers who are now orphans. There was absolutely zero reason this had to go down the way it did. It’s one thing to reveal themselves to military personal on the ship, individuals who have signed on and trained for battle. It’s completely another to involve unprepared civilians. Not only have we seen the Animorphs deal with scenarios exactly like this in the past super easily (just send in grizzly!Rachel and the problem is solved), but they only make the barest attempts to convince the campers to leave before just jumping to “let’s reveal all of our secrets to a group of complete strangers!”
Then, to make matters worse, it becomes immediately clear that the campers are in no way tracking with the seriousness of the issue, making tons of references to Star Trek and such (these were fun for laughs, but should have been seriously worrying for Jake and Tobias). So what do Jake and Tobias do? Agree that sure, it’s fine if some of them want to join in the fight. And sure, it’s fine if the others want to head out, now knowing all of their secrets. Jake and Tobias even make some passing reference to the fact that no one will believe them because they’re Trekkies. Do you know who will believe them? The Yeerks, that’s who!! They’ve known this for literally years now, which is why it’s always been so important to not reveal their human forms. It’s just insane that they now hand-wave it away or “forget” this part of it.
And then what happens? The dad and teenagers get there and then the dad realizes that wait, yes, this is real and death is on the line. But, oops, it’s too late, and now the Animorphs have civilians who all they can do to protect is to tell them to hide. Which they do, and the dad still ends up dead. There’s no reference to what happens to the kids past this point. But there is zero excuse for any of this nonsense. Jake and the others essentially just exposed their whole operation for no reason and got two kids’ dad killed for nothing. It has to go down as one of the worst things they’ve done in the entire series.
What a Terrible Plan, Guys!: The whole idea that the Hork Bajir wanted to stay and fight. This falls largely on Toby’s shoulders, but also on the rest of the Animorphs for giving in as easily as they do. I get that they couldn’t force the issue, but Toby really has no excuse. There were a lot of pretty lines about freedom and defending one’s home, but all of this is completely pointless in the situation they were in here. Freedom is meaningless if you’re dead. Not to mention, in the middle of battle preparations Toby is also preparing her people for the necessary retreat at the end of it. What the hell?! It’s bad enough to be naive enough to think they could win the battle, but the fact that they know and acknowledge the fact that they’ll need to retreat at the end of it anyways? Then you are literally just throwing your life away for pride or some nonsense. And asking others to do it too by involving the Animorphs. It’s pure stupidity for nothing. They still suffer huge losses, and somehow we’re supposed to believe that this counts as a “win” because now they’ve “protected their home” or some such nonsense? You’re still retreating to life in exile in the woods!! Nothing changed from this other than the fact that you lost a lot of your people for nothing and had the same end result.
I will say that the beaver/dam issue was rather clever. I’m not sure about the mechanics of how this would work (how fast would water really build up?), but it’s a cool idea nonetheless.
Favorite Quote:
A good comical line from Marco. The same could be said about the cover. Here we are, getting close to the end, and we have…a beaver morph.
Marco, again, calling it like it is. Jake’s rebuttal is completely weak, too. Marco legitimately did have to do what he did. Jake absolutely did not. If they had to reveal themselves to every person who’s been in the way on one of these missions, they would have shown themselves to people in almost every book.
Marco said angrily.
“Well, you, actually,” I said. “And that’s not an accusation. It’s a fact. When you told your dad about us. You did what you had to do and so did I.”
he said forcefully.
Scorecard: Yeerks 13, Animorphs 16
A point for the Yeerks! Not only did the Animorphs/Hork Bajir make terrible decisions throughout this all, but the Yeerks successfully flushed out the Hork Bajir and took one of the Animorphs’ main bases of operation off the table.
Rating: This book was infuriating. I only covered the half that had to do with the Animorphs and as you can see from my multiple rants above, even that part was incredibly angering. And that’s not counting the fact that a full half of the book was wasted on a Civil War plot line that was completely unnecessary. Look, I get that in long-running book series or show, you reach a point where this type of experimentation with storytelling comes to play simply due to ideas running dry. But we were at that point books and books ago. Now, things are actually ramping up! The series is clearly building towards an ultimate conflict. This is absolutely NOT the time to waste an entire half of an already short book on stupidity like this. And really, it’s not like the Civil War story added anything to this. I skim read it, but I could have literally read zero of it and missed nothing. Like I said above, any parallels that were drawn were so on the nose as to seem comical. And Jake’s not even reading this story or anything where he could be making these connections himself as his own story plays out. It’s just two completely seperate stories running next to each other. I’m not here for the Civil War; I’m here for Animorphs, and there’s so little of it left that it’s almost insulting to read a book like this where half the page count is essentially just thrown out on a pointless side story.
Narrator: Jake
Plot: Why. Why would we waste one of the Jake’s last precious books on this steaming pile? It’s only half a Jake book at best, and even that half is so, so not awesome. I think I could have resigned myself to this kind of nonsense if we were still in the doldrums that was much of the books in the 30-range, but here?? Now?! No.
This is the perfect image of rage and sadness at the same time. My feelings for this book so well expressed.
Look, I’m too mad to even detail the Civil War plot. Let’s be honest, I skim read all of these sections. Not only did I not care one bit, but the parallels that were being drawn were so on the nose that it was just uncomfortable at times. And also unnecessary. The series as a whole has always done an excellent job of presenting complicated wartime decisions without the need to prop those conversations up against some historical event. So, here is the plot description for the half of the book that was, you know, actually an Animorphs book.
Jake returns home, exhausted from yet another mission. On top of that, after Marco’s exposure and their exploits on the military ship, the team is in the middle of a serious debate about how/when/or if they should make their war public. Everyone is grumpy, and Jake doesn’t know what is the right choice. His mom greets him with a chores list to clear out the basement. Trudging down, he begins going through boxes and discovers a journal from a past relative who served in the Union during the Civil War. [Here enters the alternating storyline that I will actively try to forget even happened.]
Cassie calls and through code informs Jake that he’s needed at the free Hork Bajir valley. Once he and the others arrive, they are told that the worst has happened: a couple of Hork Bajir warriors have been captured and will have been infested by now, exposing the location of the valley to the Yeerks. Jake and the Animorphs immediately insist that the Hork Bajir must flee the valley, but Toby insists that they want to stay and fight, even in the face of what has to be insurmountable odds. Once it becomes clear that they will not be moved from this position, the Animorphs get down to trying to plan their defense.
As they explore around the valley, they come across a beaver dam and pond. From there, Jake gets an idea: if they build up the dam even further, they can use the pooled water as a timed released to flood out the invading Yeerk forces. The team also discovers a group of campers in the area. The team split up to get to work with several of them morphing beavers and starting to build up the dam. Tobias and Jake head out to try and get the campers to move out.
They decide to approach the campers in their human form with some lame stories about incoming weather. Not surprisingly, the campers don’t believe them. They then decide to just forget it all and morph in front of them. Luckily for them, the campers turn out to be huge Stark Trek nerds and are immediately down with the idea of believing a wild story about invading aliens. Some of them take off, but a small group (a father and his two teenage kids) decide they want to fight alongside the Animorphs and head back to the Hork Bajir valley. There, they join in an assembly line where the Hork Bajir are building spears to fight against the Yeerks.
Finally, the attack comes. They manage to hold back the first line of Hork Bajir, but shortly follows Visser One (Three) himself, in the morph he used in the first book when he chased the Animorphs out of the Yeerk pool, along with a group of Taxxons. Jake frantically signals for the dam to be released as free Hork Bajir fall all around the fighting Animorphs. Tiger!Jake ends up in a one-on-one fight with Visser One, but luckily the flood of water hits right when things start looking bad for him. He manages to swim his way out, and Visser One and the remaining Taxxons retreat.
Knowing that the Yeerks will likely try again, Toby prepares the remaining Hork Bajir to flee into the woods where they will remain until the end of the war. Marco’s parents will accompany them. As for the campers, the dad died in the attack and the two teenage children are shell-shocked. Jake and the Animorphs head home, with Jake reflecting that all they can ever do is what they think is best in the moment.
Our Fearless Leader: The beginning of this book is really great for highlighting just how exhausted Jake has become at this point. He mentions the fact that the group is barely making it through school and are all running on empty. To then get home and be presented with a list of chores…you can see how it would almost be enough to break him. Especially on top of the looming debate about going public.
There are some good moments between him and Tom. Tom even slips up a few times, making comments under his breath that would be suspicious if Jake wasn’t already in the know. It goes to show that the war is beginning to take a toll on the Yeerks as well; everyone’s guard is beginning to fall as things start to come to a head.
As for the rest of the book, we see a few good leadership moments from Jake, especially with his idea about the beaver dam. But we also see a lot of moments where things and people are definitely out of his control. He reflects on the choices that Ax made in the last book and has to come up against Toby and the Hork Bajir when they refuse to follow his direction to flee the valley.
Xena, Warrior Princess: Rachel is, of course, pro to the idea of the team going more public. She also uses her grizzly morph to help get the dam built more quickly when the beavers have a hard time moving some of the bigger logs. Not much else, other than that.
A Hawk’s Life: Tobias is with Jake when they confront the campers, so I equally blame him for the sheer stupidity of this move. I will detail my feelings on this whole “plan” later, but essentially I think it was a pretty terrible choice on both of their parts. I also wish we had gotten more from Tobias with the debate with Toby and the other Hork Bajir about the future of their life in the valley. He’s the closest to this group, so it always feels like a missed opportunity when he’s not more at the center of any discussion or interaction with them.
Peace, Love, and Animals: Cassie is the one to wade into the beaver pond and captures a beaver for them to acquire. Not sure how believable her method is, but if anyone was going to do it, it would be her.
The Comic Relief: Marco, as usual, is the only reasonable one in the group when it comes to the nonsense that is the idea that the Hork Bajir want to stay and fight and the fact that Tobias and Jake revealed themselves to the campers. The entire time, he repeatedly points out that they have no chance of winning and fighting simply for pride or something is just a way to die more quickly.
E.T./Ax Phone Home: I have to say, one of the bigger disappointments of this book is the way that we get very little follow-up on the monumental decisions that Ax made in the last book. Jake pretty much says that they’ve both kind of silently agreed to just not talk about it. Jake admits that he is secretly glad that Ax took the decision out of his hands, but he’s also still mad that Ax would disobey him so directly. For his part, we see that Ax won’t meet Jake’s eyes and clearly still has strong feelings about the entire experience. And that’s about all we get. There is zero reference to the fact that Tobias, Rachel, and Marco all agreed with Ax’s plan and helped him execute it as well, which has to be almost as notable to Jake.
Best (?) Body Horror Moment: Not really a lot. The beaver morph was pretty straightforward, as far as morphing mechanics go. The fight between tiger!Jake and Visser One is pretty brutal, however. Poor tiger!Jake, always with the neck injuries!
Couples Watch!: Really nothing at all. There were a few nice references to how well Marco’s parents are doing with their life in the valley, but Jake and Cassie don’t have much and neither do Rachel and Tobias.
If Only Visser Three had Mustache to Twirl: It’s a cool call-back to have Visser One come after them in the same morph he used in book #1. I think this may be one of the first times we’ve ever seen him re-use a morph? I’ve always thought it was strange that he didn’t have preferred battle morphs in the past, but if he was going to have one, this one seems like a solid choice. The only reason it didn’t work way back in the first book was due to its size and the small tunnels in the Yeerk Pool. Out in the open, it seems like a powerful choice. He gets in his usual corny lines, so it’s nice to know that the promotion has done nothing to improve (?) his campy villain mode.
Adult Ugly Crying at a Middle Grade Book: The whole decision with the campers, especially when you look at the end result which is two teenagers who are now orphans. There was absolutely zero reason this had to go down the way it did. It’s one thing to reveal themselves to military personal on the ship, individuals who have signed on and trained for battle. It’s completely another to involve unprepared civilians. Not only have we seen the Animorphs deal with scenarios exactly like this in the past super easily (just send in grizzly!Rachel and the problem is solved), but they only make the barest attempts to convince the campers to leave before just jumping to “let’s reveal all of our secrets to a group of complete strangers!”
Then, to make matters worse, it becomes immediately clear that the campers are in no way tracking with the seriousness of the issue, making tons of references to Star Trek and such (these were fun for laughs, but should have been seriously worrying for Jake and Tobias). So what do Jake and Tobias do? Agree that sure, it’s fine if some of them want to join in the fight. And sure, it’s fine if the others want to head out, now knowing all of their secrets. Jake and Tobias even make some passing reference to the fact that no one will believe them because they’re Trekkies. Do you know who will believe them? The Yeerks, that’s who!! They’ve known this for literally years now, which is why it’s always been so important to not reveal their human forms. It’s just insane that they now hand-wave it away or “forget” this part of it.
And then what happens? The dad and teenagers get there and then the dad realizes that wait, yes, this is real and death is on the line. But, oops, it’s too late, and now the Animorphs have civilians who all they can do to protect is to tell them to hide. Which they do, and the dad still ends up dead. There’s no reference to what happens to the kids past this point. But there is zero excuse for any of this nonsense. Jake and the others essentially just exposed their whole operation for no reason and got two kids’ dad killed for nothing. It has to go down as one of the worst things they’ve done in the entire series.
What a Terrible Plan, Guys!: The whole idea that the Hork Bajir wanted to stay and fight. This falls largely on Toby’s shoulders, but also on the rest of the Animorphs for giving in as easily as they do. I get that they couldn’t force the issue, but Toby really has no excuse. There were a lot of pretty lines about freedom and defending one’s home, but all of this is completely pointless in the situation they were in here. Freedom is meaningless if you’re dead. Not to mention, in the middle of battle preparations Toby is also preparing her people for the necessary retreat at the end of it. What the hell?! It’s bad enough to be naive enough to think they could win the battle, but the fact that they know and acknowledge the fact that they’ll need to retreat at the end of it anyways? Then you are literally just throwing your life away for pride or some nonsense. And asking others to do it too by involving the Animorphs. It’s pure stupidity for nothing. They still suffer huge losses, and somehow we’re supposed to believe that this counts as a “win” because now they’ve “protected their home” or some such nonsense? You’re still retreating to life in exile in the woods!! Nothing changed from this other than the fact that you lost a lot of your people for nothing and had the same end result.
I will say that the beaver/dam issue was rather clever. I’m not sure about the mechanics of how this would work (how fast would water really build up?), but it’s a cool idea nonetheless.
Favorite Quote:
A good comical line from Marco. The same could be said about the cover. Here we are, getting close to the end, and we have…a beaver morph.
Marco, again, calling it like it is. Jake’s rebuttal is completely weak, too. Marco legitimately did have to do what he did. Jake absolutely did not. If they had to reveal themselves to every person who’s been in the way on one of these missions, they would have shown themselves to people in almost every book.
Marco said angrily.
“Well, you, actually,” I said. “And that’s not an accusation. It’s a fact. When you told your dad about us. You did what you had to do and so did I.”
he said forcefully.
Scorecard: Yeerks 13, Animorphs 16
A point for the Yeerks! Not only did the Animorphs/Hork Bajir make terrible decisions throughout this all, but the Yeerks successfully flushed out the Hork Bajir and took one of the Animorphs’ main bases of operation off the table.
Rating: This book was infuriating. I only covered the half that had to do with the Animorphs and as you can see from my multiple rants above, even that part was incredibly angering. And that’s not counting the fact that a full half of the book was wasted on a Civil War plot line that was completely unnecessary. Look, I get that in long-running book series or show, you reach a point where this type of experimentation with storytelling comes to play simply due to ideas running dry. But we were at that point books and books ago. Now, things are actually ramping up! The series is clearly building towards an ultimate conflict. This is absolutely NOT the time to waste an entire half of an already short book on stupidity like this. And really, it’s not like the Civil War story added anything to this. I skim read it, but I could have literally read zero of it and missed nothing. Like I said above, any parallels that were drawn were so on the nose as to seem comical. And Jake’s not even reading this story or anything where he could be making these connections himself as his own story plays out. It’s just two completely seperate stories running next to each other. I’m not here for the Civil War; I’m here for Animorphs, and there’s so little of it left that it’s almost insulting to read a book like this where half the page count is essentially just thrown out on a pointless side story.
December 3, 2022
There were some pretty crazy things done in this book. For one we told more people about the secret war, and on top of that the Hork-Bajir lost their homee :(
I think it’s very obvious now Jake isn’t the most reliable narrator. He constantly guessing he knows what ppl are thinks and how they should be behaving. He’s had to be leader for so long I don’t think he’d know how to step away from this war if he had the chance. Toby served as a good foil for jake in this book. She provided a more flexible and kinder way of leading. Her hope was almost jarring compared to his nihilism.
This Jake is very interesting and I’m glad he’s finally giving us something. I still think he’s become a better leader, but he’s so jaded I hate being in his head. Almost done tho.
Also super hated the war diary chapters. Like please that was so unnecessary.
I think it’s very obvious now Jake isn’t the most reliable narrator. He constantly guessing he knows what ppl are thinks and how they should be behaving. He’s had to be leader for so long I don’t think he’d know how to step away from this war if he had the chance. Toby served as a good foil for jake in this book. She provided a more flexible and kinder way of leading. Her hope was almost jarring compared to his nihilism.
This Jake is very interesting and I’m glad he’s finally giving us something. I still think he’s become a better leader, but he’s so jaded I hate being in his head. Almost done tho.
Also super hated the war diary chapters. Like please that was so unnecessary.
June 25, 2022
Although the Animorphs books are short, they tend to be rich in heavy and complicated thematic material, which is why my reviews discussing them often wind up quite extensive. But there's honestly not much to say about this one. The plot is half the regular length, because Jake's story alternates with that of his ancestor fighting back in the Civil War. The parallel situations are reductively obvious, and the alternate viewpoint contributes basically nothing to justify its share of the pages. Meanwhile in the present, the team helps the free Hork-Bajir defend their colony by turning into beavers and rerouting a river to drown the approaching Yeerk army.
A few interesting details stand out, like that the kids have apparently learned how to morph jeans and t-shirts at some point, rather than the skin-tight bike shorts and leotards that have been their morphing outfits for so long. Or how the once-pacifist aliens refuse to flee their land without a fight, just like how a group of freedmen in the past insist on staying and helping the Union soldiers against similar overwhelming odds. Or the sci-fi enthusiast campers who won't move from the path of the coming battle until Jake makes them the latest humans to learn the big secret about the invasion, after which several decide to pitch in with the immediate resistance effort too.
But overall, this is an okay three-star outing hitched to a two-star dud of a throughline, for a two again altogether taking that structure into account. It's a rare miss both for credited author K. A. Applegate and prolific ghostwriter Ellen Geroux, and it doesn't feel remotely appropriate for such a late-franchise volume. Jake has scenes with his family in which no one even mentions how his lifelong best friend and his dad were supposedly recently killed! It just doesn't track logically or emotionally for where the series ought to be at this stage.
[Content warning for body horror, gun violence, racism, and gore.]
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A few interesting details stand out, like that the kids have apparently learned how to morph jeans and t-shirts at some point, rather than the skin-tight bike shorts and leotards that have been their morphing outfits for so long. Or how the once-pacifist aliens refuse to flee their land without a fight, just like how a group of freedmen in the past insist on staying and helping the Union soldiers against similar overwhelming odds. Or the sci-fi enthusiast campers who won't move from the path of the coming battle until Jake makes them the latest humans to learn the big secret about the invasion, after which several decide to pitch in with the immediate resistance effort too.
But overall, this is an okay three-star outing hitched to a two-star dud of a throughline, for a two again altogether taking that structure into account. It's a rare miss both for credited author K. A. Applegate and prolific ghostwriter Ellen Geroux, and it doesn't feel remotely appropriate for such a late-franchise volume. Jake has scenes with his family in which no one even mentions how his lifelong best friend and his dad were supposedly recently killed! It just doesn't track logically or emotionally for where the series ought to be at this stage.
[Content warning for body horror, gun violence, racism, and gore.]
Like this review?
--Throw me a quick one-time donation here!
https://ko-fi.com/lesserjoke
--Subscribe here to support my writing and weigh in on what I read next!
https://patreon.com/lesserjoke
--Follow along on Goodreads here!
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/6...
--Or click here to browse through all my previous reviews!
https://lesserjoke.home.blog
August 7, 2014
A free Hork-Bajir has been captured, enabling the Yeerks to find the hidden valley where they live. Jake and the Animorphs are asked to help fight the doomed battle against what is sure to be an overwhelming Yeerk force. They form a plan to drive the Yeerks away with water harnessed from damming, but they also have to deal with a group of campers that are caught in the crossfire and face the fact that they may not win this battle. Interspersed with the story of the fight for the Hork-Bajir colony is the story of Jake's ancestor Isaiah Fitzhenry, who was very young when he died in the Civil War fighting for the Union. In his military career he had to face daunting odds similar to those Jake is facing in the present, and he made an unpopular decision to let recently freed slaves fight with white men for their shared cause. Jake has access to Isaiah's thoughts through a journal he left, and the parallels line up all through the story.
My favorite lines:
Jake: Exhaustion can make you act like a jerk.
Jake: I was the leader of a group of resistance fighters, Earth's only hope for freedom, and I had to clean the basement to earn a lousy twenty bucks. Talk about irony.
Rebel soldier: "So the Union has a kid in charge. Yankees got a boy commander."
Isaiah: "And yet, my men have managed to shoot and capture you. That's not bad for child's play."
Tobias: "I'm thinking the morph should be a little more, I don't know, glamorous. I mean, going beaver to save an entire colony of aliens is like putting James Bond behind the wheel of a minivan. With a bumper sticker that says, 'World's Greatest Mom.' No offense."
Ax: "Three to four thousand cubic meters. I believe that is what it will take to inundate the valley."
Marco: "Ax, you just make me all tingly when you talk all smart-like."
Ax: "Fluid mechanics was one of my specialties as an aristh."
Marco: "What haven't you done?"
Ax: "I have never constructed an organic cellulose hydrological attack assemblage."
Marco: "We speak English, dude."
My favorite lines:
Jake: Exhaustion can make you act like a jerk.
Jake: I was the leader of a group of resistance fighters, Earth's only hope for freedom, and I had to clean the basement to earn a lousy twenty bucks. Talk about irony.
Rebel soldier: "So the Union has a kid in charge. Yankees got a boy commander."
Isaiah: "And yet, my men have managed to shoot and capture you. That's not bad for child's play."
Tobias: "I'm thinking the morph should be a little more, I don't know, glamorous. I mean, going beaver to save an entire colony of aliens is like putting James Bond behind the wheel of a minivan. With a bumper sticker that says, 'World's Greatest Mom.' No offense."
Ax: "Three to four thousand cubic meters. I believe that is what it will take to inundate the valley."
Marco: "Ax, you just make me all tingly when you talk all smart-like."
Ax: "Fluid mechanics was one of my specialties as an aristh."
Marco: "What haven't you done?"
Ax: "I have never constructed an organic cellulose hydrological attack assemblage."
Marco: "We speak English, dude."
November 14, 2023
i… ehhhh 🤷 here’s the thing. very interesting story. it was dark, it was stormy, it was raining. very interesting Strategies at play. beavers were fun. zero Dam jokes so that was pretty upsetting for me. but dude this book would’ve been LEAGUES better without the civil war journal entries. idk. i think jake could’ve been reading that journal throughout the book and it could’ve been shown better. just little tidbits within the chapters of jake talking about like war strategy and the horrors and sacrifice and he could be like In Fitzhenry’s journal, this was happening in the war and he did this. but i did not like reading his Personal journal entries and the way the black people were written was just too weird for me idk i couldn’t get behind some of it. man now i gotta read fucking ellimist chronicles this shit is gonna be ASS!
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