The Answer

Animorphs #53

by K.A. Applegate, Katherine Applegate

The Animorph book series comes to a close, as hoards of Yeerk reinforcements land on Earth everyday. Visser One is constructing a new Yeerk pool by blasting giant holes in the ground. The Animorphs' plan to enlist the help of the U.S. military has failed, and Jake and the others are trapped in what will be a new Yeerk pool.

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

Library Binding

First published April 1, 2001

About the author

also published under the name Katherine Applegate

Reviews

[Thibault Busschots · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Animorphs have won a major battle, but they haven’t won the war. The big Yeerk pool on Earth is gone. But the Pool Ship has now landed to keep the parasitic Yeerk troops alive. This of course becomes the new target of the Animorphs, as destroying the ship could put an immediate stop to the Yeerks’ invasion. But they need military help. And the Yeerks are aware of their own weakness and are not only defending the ship, they’re also quickly constructing a new Yeerk pool.


The point of view character here is Jake. His character arc has been built up very strongly in the past couple of books and here it definitely reaches an important climax. I don’t want to say more than that, to avoid spoilers. But it’s definitely worth reading and it has major implications for the war.


The pacing is once again quite fast and furious as this is another action-packed story in the race towards the finish. There are a few very interesting developments that demonstrate just how clever the author was in constructing this series’ rich world building, characters and the overarching plot. Though Jake’s character arc is what stands out most to me here. Great penultimate story in the series.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

My reaction to this book as a whole: AAAAAAAUUUUGGGHHHHHH [claws at face]

The sudden jolt when Jake gives you his last name is jarring, disorienting. After the setup of the last few books, we now get a sense of all the curtains being torn away: he just lays it all bare for us and it's astonishing, because all of the details are open for the first time ever. We're simply not used to this level of transparency from the Animorphs. It makes sense that K.A. Applegate would be back in the driver's seat for two whole books now, because she's peeling back so many details about the war, and divebombing characters and plotlines as she goes.

I touch on this in the quotes, but Jake swearing he'll be done with the war is -- heartbreaking, almost, because of how deluded it is. He'd like to think that he can settle down and lead a normal life, but Cassie can see right through that front of bravado, which is why she bursts into tears. She's the most sensitive out of all of them, and she knows Jake too well. He's just talking big, like he was in #41 when he tried to convince himself that it was possible to win without sacrifice.

It's so great seeing Arbron again, and him being able to play a role in both Taxxon liberation and winning the war. And yet the deal is its own kind of horrifying, and also sad for the Taxxons: that they would pretty much choose to make their entire species extinct, just to escape their hunger. I had completely forgotten about these aspects of the war, but it's so opposite from where we thought we'd be: Jake cutting deals with the Taxxons. And he makes a deal with the Yeerks, with Tom -- a deal with the actual devil.

Once Jake snaps into ruthless mode, and once he sees the perfect line like Marco, then he goes into autopilot. It's like capturing lightning in a bottle, hanging onto a slippery rope, trying to make it all line up and turn out as planned. He's juggling a dozen different variables. There's the sense of the inevitable, of things spiraling and crashing wildly out of control. The final showdown. It's like watching a trainwreck.

Jake's similarities to Rachel are coming out stronger and stronger in these last few books, combined with Marco's ruthlessness and Cassie's ability to manipulate people. He lines up all of his soldiers like pawns and sends them tipping, and throws all morals out of the window in pursuit of his final goal. I've been waiting close to 60 books for him to flush the Yeerk mothership: it's the type of act that a young Elfangor in the Andalite Chronicles staunchly refused to do. Because he tried to be noble, and tried to be honourable. (In fact, this reminds me of a quote from A Song of Ice and Fire: “Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, Rhaegar fought honorably. And Rhaegar died.”)

It's the weight and guilt that's going to sit heavy on Jake's shoulders for the rest of his life. It's the act that's going to have him labeled as a mass murderer, a war criminal. His narration in that scene is-- ouch. The psychological gymnastics he has to undergo in order to talk himself into it, reframing the Yeerks as "subhuman" (similar to what anyone has to tell themselves to commit any atrocity or genocide in war, really: they are worse than us, they are lesser, they are not even worthy of being called human). His voice turns so hard, clipped, curt, abrupt, as he's just thundering on from point to point, trying to keep it all under control.

All of the auxiliary Animorphs die. Almost twenty handicapped children are killed in this book, and Jake has to stand by and watch helplessly as it happens, and tell himself not to do anything. It's gut-wrenching and fucking horrible.

Visser One's weary resignation at the last, at the end of all things, is appropriate.

And those last lines. Ouch. Once again, it's all come full-circle: Get Rachel.

I wish I could be more coherent about this book, but I really can't, because it's such a suckerpunch: Jake sacrificing everything, finding his answer, and pursuing it with single-minded, fanatical zeal, no matter how much he has to salt and burn along the way. And you can tell that all of the Animorphs are on board, too: they go along, because there is literally no other choice anymore, and they understand the ramifications of losing. I cried and my heart broke for everyone, absolutely everyone, in this war.

Quotes:

<They're going after the elementary school,> Tobias said.

<They're going after everything,> I answered.

[NOTE FROM JULIE: These are the first two fucking lines of this book. Oh my god. If you weren't fully aware of how rock-bottom the last two books are going to be, this presumably shocks you right into it.]

***

My name is Jake.

My name is Jake Berenson. The days of secrecy, of lurking in the shadows are over. The Yeerks know my name. They know my height, weight, eye color, Social Security number, and favorite foods. At long last they know the word Animorph, Marco's word for us.

[...] They know it all now, the Yeerks do. All our names. All our deeds.

I've fought them for more than three years. I was just thirteen when I started. I'm sixteen now, though that fact, like so many facts, has been deliberately obscured in the secret accounts we've kept.

I'm a sixteen-year-old kid named Jake Berenson, and I am the leader of the Animorphs.

In the past it's been hard for me to say that, to take on the title of leader. In the past I've questioned myself. Wondered whether I was right, wondered whether what I did was good, wondered whether I had any right to make life-and-death decisions. I've felt sorry for myself at times. Maybe anyone would, in my spot.

But I had to put all that aside now. I had put it all aside. Not because I was suddenly convinced that I deserved the power, was worthy of it. That wasn't it. I knew better than to get too caught up in the myth of Mighty Jake the Yeerk Killer.

I had given up soul-searching because I realized now that it was simply too late. Way past too late. The battle had become a war. And I was, for better or worse, the only leader we had.

From here on out the second-guessing, the legitimate doubts, and the self-indulgent whining, they were over. Save them for my old age in the unlikely event that I ever had an old age.

***

Cassie let Tom take the morphing cube. Perhaps she had done so because to her the alternative was worse: She feared for me, for my soul I guess, if I was forced to kill my own brother.

Not good enough. Not for me. All that counted now was that we win, and Cassie, maybe for the most decent of motives, had hurt us badly.

***

But added to all that we had Marco's dad; Rachel's mom; James, the representative of our new, adjunct Animorphs; Tobias' mom; both of Cassie's parents, who only cared about making sure no one got hurt... too many people with too many agendas. But I still didn't know how to tell adults, my friends' parents no less, to be quiet and let me do my job.

***

"My daughter is not going to be dragged into some suicidal undertaking like this."

Rachel laughed. Rachel's not a person who'll be one way with her friends and another way with her family. There's only one version of Rachel. "Mom, if we go, I go. If we don't go, I still go. Visser One parks his Pool ship right out in the open and we're not going to ram it down his nonexistent throat? Hah! I'm with Marco: Blow it up. Blow it up real good."

I hid a grin. Rachel is the original Nike girl: Just do it. Just do it, and if that doesn't work, do it harder and meaner.

***

I sighed. The MPs hustled me from the room, down a hallway to a bare, overlit room furnished with a chair and a sink and a cot and a steel door with a feeding slot in it.

They threw me in, not at all gently.

I was a prisoner.

Three minutes later, I demorphed in front of General Doubleday again.

He had me tackled once more, handcuffed, shackled, my mouth duct-taped. I was carried, hog-tied, from the room and thrown back in the cell. In the cell I was chained to the cot.

Three minutes later, I demorphed in front of General Doubleday.

"General, why don't you stop being stupid and listen?" I said.

He stopped being stupid. But not until the fourth time I demorphed in front of him. And then, at last, he narrowed his eyes and looked at me and said, "All right, Mr. Alien, what have you got to say to me?"

***

"We blew up one Yeerk pool," Rachel said cockily. "So we blow up another. Badda-boom. Nothing to it."

She knew better, of course. She was just playing her part. Not for the first time I wondered what on Earth would happen to her if this war ever ended. Off to college to study prelaw or whatever? She was the goddess of war, my cousin was. Sixteen years old and a veteran of more battles than a World War II veteran. So was I, but Rachel loved it in a way I didn't. She needed it.

***

"How do you hurt a hole in the ground?" Marco wondered.

<Cave in the sides?> Tobias suggested dubiously.

"With what?" Marco said.

Cassie started to say something, stopped herself. Then, gathering her courage, she blurted, "You can't worry about the hole, you have to destroy the digging equipment."

***

At the beginning of the American Civil War, both sides thought the war was about taking or holding cities and ports and rivers and mountain passes. They thought it was a chess game.

By the end of the war they’d figured out that they weren’t playing chess. The real game was destruction.

[…] They realized that warfare was no longer about chivalry and honor, but about killing the enemy. Find the enemy, kill the enemy. Kill so many of them that those who are left alive lose their will to fight on. Do whatever it takes.

That's the way war has been ever since.

For a long time we had fought the Yeerks reactively. We were always ten steps behind, trying to foil this plan or that plan. We'd tried to fight the war with at least some vestige of decency. And maybe that had been okay when we were fighting to stop an infiltration. Now things were different. We were down to the final stages. Either the Yeerks would prevail, or we would.

So I gave simple orders to my people, the original Animorphs, and the auxiliary Animorphs, and Toby's free Hork-Bajir. Orders I had never given before: Kill the enemy. Kill the Taxxons.

Dress it up however you want, that's what war is about. If there's glory in there somewhere, I must have missed it.

***

No one said anything. I was braced for something from Cassie. Surely she would raise some sort of moral objection to this straightforward slaughter. But she remained silent. Hard to know what she would object to. It was always a question of balance for her, I guess. She was committed to winning, believed in our cause, understood that there would be terrible things to be done. But she found some things, and not other things, to be over the line. Me, I barely knew where the line was anymore. I'd come to depend on Cassie to keep me from going too far.

Nothing from Cassie.

***

<You're telling me the Taxxons want to... to stop being Taxxons?>

<Yes. Yes. My people have seen a better way... a way out of this life of eternal, excruciating pain and hunger, a hunger that has made us slaves of the Yeerks.>

I didn't know what to say. Too much to absorb. An entire species wanting to morph?

[...] <I don't have the morphing cube,> I said.

<We know. Visser One has it, and he will never free us, never. No Taxxon or even Taxxon-Controller has been allowed to acquire the morphing power. We can only have it, only be free, if you and not the Yeerks are victorious.>

<And you would...> I began, not daring even to complete the sentence, it was too amazing, the possibilities too incredible.

<Yes. We would fight with you. There are one thousand seven hundred and nine non-Controller Taxxons on the surface of this planet and aboard the Pool ship. And we Taxxons would fight with you.>

***

"It's time to choose, Ax," Cassie said very quietly. "Once and for all. We all know what Alloran did to the Hork-Bajir world, trying to keep them from falling into Yeerk hands. The Andalites won't allow Earth to fall to the Yeerks, will they?"

All attention was on Ax.

It was a long time before he spoke. It's hard to read Andalite emotions -- they lack mouths, and that makes them less expressive than humans. But it was easy enough to guess at the conflicts going on inside that wonderfully quick, agile brain.

<I have at times contacted the Andalite fleet without telling anyone,> Ax said slowly.

"I'll kill you myself!" Rachel erupted.

"Rachel," I said as evenly as I could.

<There is a possibility that the Andalite high command might resort to... extreme measures.>

"Now can I kill him?" Rachel demanded.

I wasn't far from letting her. I was furious.

[...] "The Yeerks are evil, destructive, dangerous creatures, I know that better than anyone. But the Andalites are no saints themselves. They want the Yeerks to concentrate here because the Andalites have written us off, decided we can't win, and they wanted to blast the entire planet out of existence and take out the bulk of the Yeerk race along with the human race."

"Is that true, Ax?"

Another long hesitation. Then, <Yes, Prince Jake. It is true.>

In a few moment's time I'd gone from the heights of hope and optimism to the depths of rage and despair. The Andalite fleet wasn't coming to rescue us. They were coming to destroy us in order to destroy the Yeerks.

In a heartbeat we'd lost one enemy, the Taxxons, and gained another, far more deadly: our erstwhile friends, our long-awaited saviors, the Andalites.

***

"I guess if we win, if we survive, maybe we should, you know, get married and all. I mean, eventually. I know we're young, but man, we've been through enough that it should count for a few extra years, shouldn't it?"

I don't know what I expected her answer to be, but I didn't expect her to start crying. And not tears of joy, either.

"I would like that... eventually," she said.

"But. But what?"

She sighed. "But, Jake, what are you going to be? What are you going to do?"

"Guess I thought I'd go to college," I said.

"And study what, Jake? Me, I'll go to college, I'll become a doctor, never forget what's happened, I'll never even try, but I'll be able to slip back into a normal life. But you, Jake?"

I shrugged and released her and stood away a bit. "I'm not Rachel, you know. I didn't fall in love with the fight. I don't need it like she does. I do it, I try and do it well, but it's just a job, a duty." I tried to make a joke of it. "I mean, what do you think? The Pentagon is going to call me up and make me Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? I'm not even old enough to enlist as a private."

She didn't laugh. She just looked at me.

"Look, Cassie, when this is is over I'll be done with it forever. I'll go back to school, get an education, go to basketball games, get a driver's license, go to college, figure out what it is I really want to do. And be with you. You and me."

She forced a smile. "A year after it ends, if it ends, if we win, a year afterward if you want to be with me, we'll talk about that again, okay?"

"I have to wait a year? Kind of harsh, isn't it?"

"Hey, if we get married, Marco isn't going to live with us, is he?" Cassie said, trying her best to jolly us both out of our dark moods.

It didn't work.

For the first time I could taste the faint possibility of actual victory, despite the probable Andalite betrayal. The Taxxons might be joining us! For so long I'd fought with no hope at all.

I should be excited.

I should be happy.

[NOTE FROM JULIE: I blathered at Stephanie about this, but I love this scene because of Jake's self-delusion -- a trait he's exhibited again and again over the years. He'd like to think he's better and more functional than Rachel. He's lying to himself again, feebly protesting and insisting that he'll be able to pick up a normal life again, but Cassie knows him better than that.]

***

Tom's face smirked. "Little brother, you've got to know by now: Wars aren't won with clean hands."

"Don't listen to him," Cassie said, but it was almost a whisper.

"What do you have to offer?" I asked Tom.

"The keys to the kingdom, kid. I can give you the access codes for every system on the Pool ship. If you can take it, Brother Jake, you and your free Hork-Bajir and your new Taxxon allies, if you can take it, I can tell you how to fly it. Not only that, I have a plan to help you get aboard the Pool ship. And by the way, your old friend Visser One has temporarily transferred his headquarters to the Pool ship. The Pool ship and Visser One -- that's game, set, and match." He grinned at me and said, "They'll carve your sanctimonious face up on Mount Rushmore, Jake-Boy. You'll be the savior of the human race."

[NOTE FROM JULIE: I love Tom's voice here. Condescending, slithery, conniving, tempting.]

***

The keys were in my hands.

I could win. We could win.

If General Doubleday would provide the diversion. If the Taxxons would rally to us. If Tom's Yeerk provided us with the access codes. If Tom really could get us aboard the Pool ship and we could overpower the Yeerks still aboard. And if Ax could (and would) find a way to convince his people to ratify the promises we'd made to the Taxxons and Tom's dissident Yeerk faction.

Five "ifs." A lot. But at least now the number of "ifs" was a finite number.

A sixth "if": If Tom's Yeerk was telling the truth.

***

<It's never completely clean, Cassie. Doesn't work that way. But you try your best to keep it clean. The fact that you know you'll be dragged in the gutter doesn't mean you don't try like hell to stay out of it. You don't get a lot of straight-up good or evil choices. You get shades of gray. I mean, we started this war thinking we'd hold on till the great and glorious Andalites came to rescue us. Now we're making deals with Taxxons and Yeerks to gain a victory fast enough to keep the great and glorious Andalites from making their own shades-of-gray decision.>

<What are you going to do?> Cassie asked.

<I'm going to win,> I said.

[NOTE FROM JULIE: Here, have a callback to #17, from Rachel's narration: "But even I have enough sense to know the words "we have to win" are the first four steps on the road to hell."

This series is so fantastic for the way it all comes full circle. It's constantly been examining the nature of ethics & morals & hard decisions, and how to keep your hands clean. Until now we're at the final countdown. and Jake has dispensed with all of it in the pursuit of winning. He's consciously decided to set it all aside, deciding that literally nothing else matters but survival.]

***

It came to me all at once that I could beat him. Use him and beat him.

One of those rare, perfect moments when a dozen nagging questions, an infinity of details, simply fall perfectly into place and form a single clear picture.

It took my breath away. The perfection of it. The pure, ruthless perfection of it.

All I had to do was send my friends to die.

Cassie was still talking to me, but I didn't hear her words. I had seen the vision. I could see the pure, straight line from point A to point Z.

[NOTE FROM JULIE: AHHHHH. JAKE HAS JUST EXPERIENCED A MARCO MOMENT. Welcome to walking a mile in these shoes, Jake. It isn't pretty.]

Continued in comments!

[Juushika · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's only right that Jake gets the final single-narrator book, and it's a good one. Reveals like his full name, age, height, and the series's timescale are devastating in that they ground everything that's come before, making it feel more real--despite, of course, various narrative inconsistencies. The reveal of the cast's ages also prompts a formal aging up, moving the series from MG to YA. The more nuanced characterizations of--and interactions between--the Taxxons, Visser, and Chee further this--and the realer things get, the more harrowing they become, which suits the end of the series. It's hard to judge relative quality through my anticipation/dread of that ending, but I love the balance of small to large, of intimate, broken personal moments and big-picture plot developments, of character breakdowns and Animorphs hypercompetence; it's fitting for a penultimate book and a strong parallel to Jake's late-game character development.

[Nemo (The ☾Moonlight☾ Library) · Rating 5 out of 5]

The final stages of the war are at hand. With the Yeerk pool now a giant sinkhole taking up most of the downtown area, Jake and the Animorphs know the only food supply for the parasites is the Pool ship landing from orbit. That’ll be their target in the biggest fight the Animorphs have ever faced. But can new allies and old friends be trusted? And can they outsmart all of their enemies, including the Andalites who are planning to ‘quarantine’ the planet?

Well. This is it. The final book before everything goes to hell in a hand basket.

Actually it all goes to shit in this book.

To see why, visit The Moonlight Library!

[Bon · Rating 4 out of 5]

crying already tbh with one book to go

[Swankivy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nuts. The world is still reeling from knowing they're being invaded by aliens, but now they have to deal with the fact that it's probably going to end in enslavement for all of them. Jake . . . Jake is the leader. He has to decide.

The weird aliens who suffer from insatiable hunger--the Taxxons--are really interesting in this book, and the moral dilemma is so fierce it hurts to read about.

I would have never wanted to be in Jake's position. I wonder what I would have done?

Notable moments and inconsistencies:

Jake gives us his last name in this book, because it doesn't matter if people know who he is now. His last name is Berenson.

The Animorphs' ages were unclear, and it's still unclear whether they're all in the same grade in school, but Jake claims he was thirteen when the war started and sixteen at the present of the books.

In this book Jake refers to the previous Visser One--Eva's Yeerk--as "he." The Yeerk was usually referred to as "she" in other books, and seemed to self-identify as female too.

Rachel, in Hork-Bajir morph, thought-speaks to Controllers to ask them to stop shooting. It seems odd that they don't notice she's thought-speaking, because surely they don't think Visser One is there, and he'd be the only thought-speaking person on their side.

In the previous book, Ax communicated with the Andalite high command and Tobias knew that he had been doing so but didn't know what was discussed because it was all done in private thought-speak he couldn't hear. What's curious is that in this book, Cassie reveals that she was a morphed flea on Ax's back during these communications, and some of her lines reveal that she knows the full story--which would not have been something she should have had the ability to overhear.

The phrase "In a few moment's time" is used, and the apostrophe is in the wrong place. "A few moments' time" is correct.

Jake and Cassie actually talk about getting married in this book.

Fleas are said not to have much in the way of ability to hear and interpret sounds. It's curious, then, that fleas hiding on Jake's human body can understand what he's saying when he speaks, though in the next book Rachel's narration suggests that with practice a flea can learn to understand speech by interpreting vibrations felt with the antennae.

[Kara Babcock · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read #53: The Answer and #54: The Beginning back-to-back because this book ends on a cliffhanger. Like the rest of my reviews of Animorphs, I’m not really flagging this as having spoilers despite discussing the plot, because I figure that if you’re reading this review of the end of a 50-book series 20 years later, then you probably don’t care that much about spoilers.

ALSO, weirdly enough, very specific spoiler for Buffy season 5, FYI.

Indubitably it’s fitting that the last Animorphs book narrated from a single person’s perspective is narrated by Jake, the leader, the one who started it off. One might, if one had more emotional fortitude than myself, go back after reading this book and re-read #1: The Invasion right away, just to see the juxtaposition of the two Jakes. I bet it would be A Trip! The Jake of The Answer is tired, broken, angry, scared, and basically every type of messy emotion you would expect from a child soldier turned into a child general. This is a brutal book.

There’s a moment in Buffy: The Vampire Slayer at the end of season 5 that is hands-down one of my favourite lines of the series. Giles stands over a supine Ben/Glory, and calmly explains that Buffy could never have killed Ben, because “She’s a hero, you see. She’s not like us.” And then he smothers Ben to death. This act of chilling pragmatism, the way Giles implies he’s doing this to spare Buffy further pain, creates so many questions about what we consider to be heroic. Is it heroic to slaughter thousands, hundreds of thousands of creatures you consider your enemy? Is it heroic to send your people off to their deaths if you think it will save lives? Is it heroic to manipulate a pacifist android into inadvertently assisting your militant strategy? Jake does all of these things.

Jake’s key realization, what we are supposed to think is the eponymous answer of this book, is that he can take one for the team so no one else has to. Namely, Jake sacrifices himself as much as he sacrifices Rachel. He basically kills his humanity because he thinks that’s the best way to save the rest of humanity.

And I don’t like it.

I’m really, really tired of the idea that Sometimes In War We Must Do Terrible Things. Too often in fiction this seems like an excuse for the glorification of violence. That isn’t what Applegate is doing here, mind you. I know she’s attempting to explore, for a youth audience, the horrible nature of the choices people make in war. I know that this is ultimately a story about the horror of war, and Applegate is extremely clear that the Animorphs did A Good Thing by forcing the Andalites’ hand and averting the wholesale destruction of Earth, even if it cost a lot of Yeerk lives.

I’m just not really interested in science fiction perpetuating the inevitability of awful decisions in war when it could instead be exploring more interesting possibilities.

So that’s why I love this ending to the series. I love how Applegate finally concludes the arc that she started at the beginning of this series—and I’m not talking about the Yeerk invasion. I’m referring, obviously, to the incredible potential of morphing technology to end the war once and for all. This has been the elephant in the room for over 50 books now, and finally it gets a serious hearing, with potent results. The whole subplot with Arbron and the Taxxons reminds us that there are alternative ways to resolve conflicts that don’t involve mass slaughter and bloodshed. But the Andalites and the Yeerks have been fighting for too long to remember that.

So that’s why I think the real answer of this book refers to that solution, to the idea that there is a third path out of this war. If Jake and the Animorphs don’t completely pull it off, if more lives were lost along the way, that isn’t their fault—that is the messy reality of plans never working quite like you intend. What matters, I think, is that he and the Animorphs tried. There are so many other ways in which Applegate might have ended this series. She could have developed a bioweapon that starves the Yeerks out of every possible host. She could have had the Animorphs completely genocide the entire Yeerk species. But she didn’t. She leaves the door open to the possibility of peace, of reparation. Perhaps the Yeerks back on the homeworld will one day be able to morph into a form that suits them.

At the end of the day, the Animorphs always revelled in how morphing was this incredible gift. The most joyous moments of this series occur when one or more of them goofs off in morph. When they describe the incredible sensations of flight, of swimming in a pod of dolphins, of burrowing into the soft earth. There is a cruel irony in this series, that the Andalites, who are literally in physical contact with their planet every time they feed, perceive a technology that lets them become closer to nature only as a weapon of war, while some humans, who are every bit as quick—if not more quick—to violence as Andalites, view it as this incredible experience.

My reviews of Animorphs:
← #52: The Absolute | #54: The Beginning →

[Choko · Rating 4 out of 5]

So intense!!! On to the finale...

[Trevor Abbott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun fact, every animorph book started out with a “my name is ___, but I can tell you my real name because yeerks…”
Well Jake revealed his last name, and something about that gave me chills.

Cassie gets another MVP medal because now the Taxons want to defect with the promise they’ll get to morph into a non hunger crazed animal. Yeerks want to defect with the same promise. The andalites have decided that they won’t interfere with the invasion but instead destroy earth once all the yeerks concentrate their forces there. Jake has decided to do whatever it takes to win.

He threatens to kill people to get the pacifists Chee androids to help, breaking an alliance they’ve had since book 7.
He used all the new disabled animorphs to cause a diversion with the understanding they would be cannon fodder, and they were.
He sent Rachel on her own to kill his brother, with the very likely possibility that she will die herself
Oh AND he killed around 17,000 yeerks by dumping them into space, which like yeah fair but also that’s still 17,000 lives to have on your conscience

I have a tummyache

[Katelynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one took me a long time to read. I had to keep re-reading sections because I couldn't believe what I was reading. Continuing on to the next one, the final one, feels truly masochistic.

[Jerry (Rebel With a Massive Media Library) · Rating 4 out of 5]

The end is almost here...

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

   These Animorphs reviews are getting harder and harder to write. It’s not that I don’t have anything to say – you can see I do by all the comments I associate with the selected quotes -- but that I don’t know the words to say it, really. Most all of the loose ends have been tied up, and now, the entire war is going into the endgame. Loyalties have been tested, moral lines are being crossed, betrayals old and new coming to light…The closer we get to the end – of the series, of the war - the more broken the Animorphs seem. The internal rifts are growing, and I think it is in large part thanks to their comfort with working as a team, with being a well-oiled military machine, that they are holding together at all.

   Maybe this is in part because I took a nearly 3 week break between reading #52 and reading #53 to read some other books, but I also feel a lot more disconnected from the series. Like this book: I read it, I took my time and read it slowly, digesting it as I went, and yet I barely feel like I read it at all; I feel like the story did not quite “stick” solidly in my mind as earlier books did. And that is not anything against the story, or the plot, or any shortcoming on the book’s/author’s part – far from it. I am more inclined to think that it is because I know the end is coming. I know which character dies and a few other depressing things about “after”, and I am subconsciously distancing myself from the story/characters to protect myself from what is coming. The inevitable end – the end without hope -- is nigh, and I don’t know if I can handle it. Fifteen years after I first read it, remembering some of the end of the series … now I see all the arrows pointing to the inevitability if it all, and I just don’t know how to handle it -- even today, at 26 years old. I’ve become so attached to the Animorphs and their world, and I don’t really want to see what is coming happen (again).

   Anyways, back to the book. I believe this is the last book narrated by only one Animorph, and it is Jake. Which is really fitting, as the series started with him being thrust into leadership, and now it is “ending” with him making some final decisions. He has grown from merely being the reluctant leader who asks for votes as often as possible to the only possible leader who, while taking in the input of others, is making the final, definitive decisions. He is General Jake, now more than ever. He is crossing lines left and right, he is seeing the clear bright line from A to Z, and he is being ruthless in his pursuit of victory. But at what cost will this victory come? He has already lost so much of himself by crossing moral lines – as have the other Animorphs -- and the losses continue to mount ever higher. Making deals with Taxxons, making deals with Yeerks, using all of his soldiers and then some – it is all coming down to this.

   I have much more to say about individual scenes in the quotes/comments section – SO MUCH happens in this book - and it just would not do justice to the book to try to summarize it any further here, I don’t think. Also, you might note that my selected “summary” quote for this book is considerably longer than any other quote I have done. It is longer than I would like, but the more I reviewed all the quotes I typed up, the more I realized that this was really the only one which fit the entire book, the one which represents the culmination of everything that has happened before and during this installment.

      One of those rare, perfect moments when a dozen nagging questions, an infinity of details, simply fall perfectly into place and form a single clear picture.
   It took my breath away. The perfection of it. The pure, ruthless perfection of it.
   All I had to do was send my friends to die.

All the quotes under the spoiler, for obvious reasons.

   I’ve fought them for more than three years. I was just thirteen when I started. I’m sixteen now, though that fact, like so many facts, has been deliberately obscured in the secret accounts we’ve kept.
   I’m a sixteen-year-old kid named Jake Berenson, and I am the leader of the Animorphs. – page 9 – So I figured right, that they had been fighting about three years based on how the books unfolded without regard for publication dates or anything like that. (small “Yay I was right!” moment.)

   I’ve felt sorry for myself at times. Maybe anyone would, in my spot.
   But I had to put all that aside now. I had to put it all aside. Not because I was suddenly convinced that I deserved the power, was worthy of it. That wasn’t it. I knew better than to get too caught up in the myth of Mighty Jake the Yeerk Killer.
   I had given up soul-searching because I realized now that it was simply too late. Way past too late. The battle had become a war. And I was, for better or worse, the only leader we had.
   From here on out the second-guessing, the legitimate doubts, and the self-indulgent whining, they were over. Save them for my old age in the unlikely event that I ever have an old age. – page 9 – That is not good, that Jake would give up his soul-searching – that is yet another step down the path to losing himself completely to this war.

   Marco’s mom was free of her Yeerk slave master […] That Visser One was dead and his human host […] – page11 – But that Visser One was a female Yeerk; Eva even referred to her as a “she” as recently book #52…

   Cassie had let Tom take the morphing cube. Perhaps she had done so because to her the alternative was worse: She feared for me, for my soul I guess, if I was forced to kill my own brother.
   Not good enough. Not for me. All that counted now was that we win, and Cassie, maybe for the most decent of motives, had hurt us badly.
   I loved Cassie. Always had. Still did. But there was this thing between us now. – page 12 – (emphasis added)

   “You don’t just dismiss us!” Rachel’s mom yelled.
   “Sure he does, Mom,” Rachel said cheerfully.
   “I need Rachel, Marco, Tobias, Ax, Toby, James, and Eva,” I said.
   I hadn’t meant to exclude Cassie. I really hadn’t. But it was too late. She looked like I’d hit her. She blinked and turned quickly away, covering the moment with aimless chatter to her parents.
   Tobias gave me a dirty look. And if you think a red-tailed hawk’s gaze is always a dirty look, you’re close to being right. Still, I knew Tobias was mad at me. Everyone was.
   […] There was nothing to be done now. I couldn’t go running after Cassie. The insult had been delivered. There was no taking it back now. – page 18-19 – Guess Rachel’s mom is still adjusting to Jake being leader, despite her previous endorsement of him to the army guy in the last book. And Tobias is … he seems very protective of keeping the group together as of late. Possibly more so than Cassie, even. Or at least, in a different way – he gets angry about it and makes sure Jake knows he is angry, whereas Cassie gets more generally emotional.

   < They’re building a new Yeerk pool, > Tobias reported. < Not so much a cave like the old one. More like they’re digging a small lake and going to let it be open. Taxxons are all over the place, like maggots on a piece of roadkill. >
   I could see that Marco was preparing some witty remark on the fact that Tobias was unusually familiar with roadkill. I shot him a look and he sighed, letting it go. – page 23 – I don’t think I caught this the first time, but later I realized: this is subtly letting us know that Tobias doesn’t even have time to properly hunt – he’s been relying on roadkill and other carrion to keep fed since the war ratcheted up into high gear. The human Animorphs are not the only ones who have been greatly affected by having to pull out of 'normal' society/their 'normal' lives.

   The general looked amused. “[…] You’re a kid who can turn into a bug. I take my orders from the chain of command, and that ain’t you.”
   It was a nice try, but I’ve been intimidated by the best. After you stand up to the likes of Andalites, Visser One, and Crayak, you don’t quiver just because some guy has stars on his shoulders.
   […] The general’s face was growing redder the more I talked. But, like I say, you want scary? Visser One has a tendency to morph into huge, murdering alien beasts. Red face? Not even in the game. – page 30 – Can I also just say, I love that it took the general not one, not two, but four times of Jake demorphing from a bug in front of him before he listened to Jake?

   [During the Civil War,] Lincoln had figured it out earlier than most [that it was not a chess game of capture the city] and his generals; Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, and Philip Sheridan made it happen.
   […] They burned enemy homes and farms. […] They starved the enemy.
   They realized that warfare was no longer about chivalry and honor, but about killing the enemy. Find the enemy, kill the enemy. Kill so many of them that those who are left alive lose their will to fight on. Do whatever it takes.
   That’s the way war has been ever since. – page 45-46 – And now, that is the war you and the Animorphs are fighting. You tried to be honorable and chivalrous, but it hasn’t worked overall. Now it’s time to change the rules.

   [After discussing the plans to attack the Taxxons digging the new Yeerk pool.] No one said anything. I was braced for something from Cassie. Surely she would raise some sort of moral objection to this straightforward slaughter. But she remained silent. Hard to know what she would object to. It was always a question of balance for her, I guess. She was committed to winning, believed in our cause, understood there would be terrible things to be done. But she found some things, and not other things, to be over the line. Me, I barely knew where the line was anymore. I’d come to depend on Cassie to keep me from going to far.
   Nothing from Cassie. – page 49 – I almost think Cassie has lost some confidence in her abilities to make decisions for the group. Or maybe it is just because she realizes that her decisions are too moralizing for what they have to do in order to win.

   And there were Taxxons, three of them. […] < Please do not attack, we mean you no harm. > -- page 55 – Arbron! (BTW: Just how long are Taxxon lifespans, anyways??)

   [Jake asks if they lost anyone in the fight at the new Yeerk pool, and Marco answers,] “Yeah. Three of Toby’s people. One of James’s people, the guy named Ray. And you, or so we thought.” – page 60 – They’ve been waiting for losses on their side, and here are several. Also…I can’t help but wonder if Ray dying is another nod to Rachel (his name is the first syllable of hers, for one) dying later.

   [Cassie prompts the truth out of Ax about his communications with the Andalite fleet and their plans to quarantine Earth.] “Now can I kill him?” Rachel demanded.
   I wasn’t far from letting her. I was furious. Betrayed! Ax had used our limited communicator to chat with his people? Behind our backs?
   Cassie said, “Ax has already defied them. They ordered him to stop our attack on the Yeerk pool. He disobeyed.”
   < You spied on me? > Ax asked her.
   “I’m an Animorph, Ax,” Cassie answered. “A flea on your back when you would sneak out of camp.” – page 68 – Oh, that is sneaky, even more so than how Tobias spied on him. If you can’t trust your friends at this point, who can you trust? And here I thought the team had been getting back together…

   [Cassie describes the anaconda’s laconic way of life to Jake, who responds,] “Florida retirement for Taxxons.”
   “Yeah.”
   “Well, let’s get this over with,” I said reluctantly.
   “It’s perfectly safe,” Cassie said condescendingly.
   “It’s a snake. It’s a snake the size of [a] palm tree.”
   “Come on.” She put her arm through mine and drew me away toward the access corridor behind the cages. – page 74 – Nice bit of humor, and good to see them ‘back together’ like this, too. They both needed - need - it.

   “Cassie, you ever wonder what happens if we win? You ever think about that?”
   “All the time.”
   “Nothing will ever be the same. People will know the galaxy is full of life, full of intelligent species. We’ll have this huge rush of technological change. There’ll be nothing to stop us from being a space-traveling species. Humans on the moon, on Mars, maybe colonizing planets all around the galaxy. And there’s the morphing technology. Can you imagine what that’s going to mean?”
   Cassie nodded. “I guess I don’t think about that stuff so much. I guess I think more about us. You and me. And all of us.”
   I took her in my arms. The anaconda’s habitat was probably not the most romantic place on Earth, but it felt safe. “You know I love you.”
   “I love you too, Jake,” she said, and put her head on my shoulder. – page 74-75 – …and the rest of this conversation. It’s so…reluctantly hopeful. They still have dreams of some sort of normalcy after all. I also find it interesting how Jake makes a point of saying that he is not like Rachel, that he didn’t fall in love with the fight. But… they are cousins, they share blood, and well … with his decisions later, though he does not seem to have any love for the fight, he is good at it …

   For the first time I could taste the faint possibility of actual victory, despite the probable Andalite betrayal. The Taxxons might be joining us! For so long I’d fought with no hope at all.
   I should be excited.
   I should be happy. – page 76-77 – But you’re not excited or happy, are you, Jake? Because after all you have seen and done, this hope is more of a false hope than a real, solid hope. It’s almost a dream.

   < Hey, there’s a key in the ignition. See if the radio works, > Marco suggested. – page 79 – Um, I’m sorry, but he’s a flea. He can’t see the ignition to know that there’s a key there. Should be rephrased: Hey, maybe there’s a key in the ignition. (If so,) see if the radio works.

   [Tom] grinned at me and said, “They’ll carve your sanctimonious face up on Mount Rushmore, Jake-Boy. You’ll be the savior of the human race.” – page 93 – So, the Drode and Crayak are not the only ones who use the word “sanctimonious” for Jake… keep linking things together, Ms. Applegate…

   The keys were in my hands.
   I could win. We could win.
   If General Doubleday would provide the diversion. If the Taxxons would rally to us. […etc.]
   Five “ifs.” A lot. But at least the number of “ifs” was a finite number.
   A sixth “if”: If Tom’s Yeerk was telling the truth. – page 95 – Pretty stark laying out of the “ifs” of Jake’s plan – and an interesting comparison, Jake potentially having the “keys to win” in his hands – but at what cost?

   I took a moment to digest that. [Cassie] was actually blaming herself. < Cassie, these things happen. You can’t always predict the results of the things you do. You try your best, take your best shot, and maybe it comes out right, and maybe it comes out … I don’t know, confused. > -- page 97 – Jake knows this all too well by now. His entire life has become about trying his best and hoping things come out right in the end.

   < It’s never completely clean, Cassie. Doesn’t work that way. But you try your best to keep it clean. The fact that you know you’ll be dragged in the gutter doesn’t mean you don’t try like hell to stay out of it. You don’t get a lot of straight-up good or evil choices. You get shades of gray. I mean, we started this war thinking we’d hold on till the great and glorious Andalites came to rescue us. Now we’re making deals with Taxxons and Yeerks to gain a victory fast enough to keep the great and glorious Andalites from making their own shades-of-gray decision. >
   < What are you going to do? > Cassie asked.
   < I’m going to win, > I said. But I didn’t believe it. Why? It was all there. It was all possible at least. – page 97-98 – More of what Jake has learned throughout this war: “It’s never completely clean.” Not to mention, this entire little speech is also like him justifying to himself everything they have done thus far. And him saying, “I’m going to win,” sounds to me a little like he is also alluding to the whole “Do whatever it takes” to win – the first four words on the road to hell, as Rachel pointed out not too long ago. Side note: these last ten or so books have used “hell” quite a few times – definitely more than a middle-grade book should use it. All the more evidence that after book 30 or so, this series definitely graduated into solid young adult levels not only for themes, but also for language. (I also checked with my mom, to see if I had mentioned the usage of “hell” to her as a 10/11 year old, and she said I did – and she checked the context, found the context appropriate, and did not stop me from continuing to read Animorphs.)

   It came to me all at once that I could beat [Tom]. Use him and beat him.
   One of those rare, perfect moments when a dozen nagging questions, an infinity of details, simply fall perfectly into place and form a single clear picture.
   It took my breath away. The perfection of it. The pure, ruthless perfection of it.
   All I had to do was send my friends to die.
   Cassie was still talking to me, but I didn’t hear her words. I had seen the vision. I could see the pure, straight line from point A to point Z. – page 99-100 – This sounds so much like a combination of Marco and Rachel being channeled by Jake, to see the course of action he needs to set into motion. Truly, he is a lot more like his cousin and his best friend than maybe even he realized.

   I explained what I wanted [Rachel] to do.
   < You’re sure, Jake? > she asked solemnly after I had finished. < Because if you tell me “Go!” I’ll follow your orders. You know what that means. >
   < Yeah, Rachel, I know what it means. >
   Still she hesitated. < It won’t be the Yeerk, Jake. It’ll be Tom. It’ll be him. >
   < I know that, > I said. < And I … if it happens, if it comes down that way, I don’t have a plan for getting you out. You’d be on your own. >
   < That’s how I like it. > -- page 101 – See, the line with Rachel is being definitely crossed right her. Rachel is Jake’s sword, his ruthless weapon of death. “Get Rachel.”

Continued in the comments, again...

[claresgotbooksagain · Rating 5 out of 5]

What the fuck!!!!!!!!! Jake!!!!!

[Joe Kessler · Rating 5 out of 5]

(A quick note from your reviewer here. If you've read my past few Animorphs reviews, you've probably noticed that I've been giving away more and more of the plot each time. These final volumes are just so jam-packed with major developments that it's hard to discuss them otherwise! But here's one last reminder as I move forward to talk about the penultimate novel below that spoilers are thick in the air.)

Two words come immediately to mind to describe this second-to-last Animorphs book: propulsive and devastating. Each installment in the franchise's closing sequence (#49 onward, roughly) has been a game-changer in its own way, and yet it's still a shock to hear our narrator introduce himself here with a curt, "My name is Jake. My name is Jake Berenson." Yes, many volumes later, the original protagonist who first warned us that he and his friends had to keep their identities a secret is now offering his full name, along with the fact that they were 13 years old back then and 16 now. And why not? The enemy knows who he is. They've taken his family and destroyed his entire hometown. Whatever the imagined in-universe audience for these accounts, there's no longer any point in keeping things from them at this stage.

But the sudden shift to forthrightness marks a character note, too. It signals that Jake is finally at his rawest and most ruthless, with no time left for convenient half-truths. As the story opens, he's watching the Yeerks burn a two-mile radius around the wreckage of the feeding pool that the Animorphs destroyed at the end of the previous novel, torching the surrounding homes, businesses, schools, and any fleeing survivors both for retribution and to create a zone of protection around the spaceship that's just flown in from orbit as a temporary Kandrona source. The teen general recognizes that, protected though it is, this vessel must be his group's next target. And they'll have to act quickly if they want to win this war, before either the ground forces can get a new pool up and running or the Andalite fleet can arrive to wipe out all life on earth, human and Yeerk alike. The near-certainty of friendly casualties can't be a deterrent from ordering the Animorphs to embark on their final mission ever.

And they'll need allies willing to risk dying for the cause, too. First the military leaders who have belatedly come around to the reality that there are aliens invading the planet, and who still have plenty of Controller operatives planted among their ranks that Jake helps root out. Then the auxiliary force of disabled teens led by James, who have so far mostly used their morphing for reserve support. Add to those a rival faction of Yeerks who want independence from Visser One and the long-awaited return of the Chee, about each of which I'll have more to say further on. And in possibly the biggest surprise, there's a contingent of free Taxxons led by the nothlit Arbron last seen in The Andalite Chronicles, who wish to betray their old alliance with the Yeerks in exchange for the ability to morph away from their all-consuming hunger.

That's a nice bit of closure and a welcome throwback to a book that came out four years previously, but it's also one of the many elements in this title that is quietly horrible the longer you dwell upon it. The majority of the Taxxon species is uninfested, since Yeerks hate the powerlessness of their ravenous bodies and the giant cannibalistic centipedes are generally willing to obey orders in exchange for battlefield carnage anyway. So their unexpected offer of aid is too promising for the Animorphs to turn down, and they seem happy with the idea of morphing en masse into anacondas -- once the war is over and the morphing cube has been recovered -- and staying in that form for good. Yet that would be a genocide of a sort, since any children they'd produce would be just regular snakes. The creatures may have agency in embracing that fate, but by striking this accord, Berenson and his comrades are ensuring that this generation of Taxxons will be the last.

The Chee's assistance likewise stings, as it's gained by subterfuge that cruelly abuses the pacifist androids' long-running friendship with our heroes. Knowing that their primary contact Erek will refuse to fight or otherwise cause damage to a living being, Jake has Marco lure him out to the team's woodland camp anyway, and then presents him with a terrible ultimatum: accompany and help us on our upcoming strike against the Pool ship, or Ax here will kill Chapman, the known Controller, school administrator, and early minor antagonist of the series whom the teens have now taken prisoner. It's not a nice position to put either the android or the aristh in, and yet it pales next to Jake's treatment of his cousin Rachel or the war crimes still ahead.

The last party in this unusual association is the renegade Yeerk force led by the slug in the head of Jake's brother Tom, now promoted to the visser's chief of security. I still think it would have made more sense for him to have split off when he first captured the cube back in #50 The Ultimate, but by playing a longer game, I suppose he's in a stronger position to undermine his superior and set Visser One and the Animorphs against one another here. Luckily Jake realizes the likely duplicity in his foe's claim of just wanting to flee the Yeerk Empire, and he quickly makes plans to counter it. In one of his finer displays of cold, Marco-like strategy, he has the insight both to substitute a Chee hologram for Cassie as Tom's supposed prisoner (whom the treacherous Controller sure enough arranges to get devoured by a Taxxon), and to secret Rachel aboard the Blade ship on a solo mission he keeps hidden from his teammates and us until the very end of this book, when his group has painstakingly managed to take control of the floating Pool ship. Her orders are simple: to kill Tom once and for all if/when his Yeerk shows its true colors. And as the two cousins have privately discussed earlier, before we learn the specifics, there is no plan in place for getting her safely out again afterwards.

That's a heck of a cliffhanger, which is not a narrative structure that author K. A. Applegate -- or her team of ghostwriters, now dismissed for the two-part finale -- has employed too often in these books. But it makes for an iconic scene here, with Rachel revealed on her quest to kill the older cousin at his brother's command and the remaining Animorphs facing down Visser One on his control bridge, while a bitter Erek off in Engineering refuses to restore power to the weapons despite Tom's ship drawing near. The protagonists seem on the verge of victory for their planet, but as predicted, the cost to get there has been too, too high. James and the entire auxiliary team are dead, gunned down in an assault meant largely to convince the visser that the morph-capable humans were all outside the ship. (A tragic end to their storyline, albeit one that would register more keenly if they had been developed less fitfully as a central part of the action since their introduction, or if their final moments were depicted in greater detail. Most of them never even get a name or significant characterization before their demise.) The human soldiers, free Taxxons, and Toby's Hork-Bajir squadron have suffered significant losses, too. And although all of our original team has survived thus far, Jake's taken one more turn for the monstrous that still needs to be addressed.

This mission is a tough ordeal for the young commander, the latest in three long years of guerilla campaigning that have exposed him and his friends to all manner of trauma and steadily ground away at his youth and innocence. Forced again and again to be the one to make the tough call and put lives on the line, he's risen magnificently to the occasion and led this band of warriors better than anyone could have hoped. But he's lost some of his essential humanity along the way, and we see the ultimate consequences here. Although he's reconciled with his girlfriend Cassie for her role in letting Tom's Yeerk escape with the cube -- hoping she could save the boy from the moral weight of killing his brother, a wish that now seems dashed -- she's exhausted and aware of the stakes too, offering little of her typical ethical objections to the battle plan. And when Jake blurts out that he thinks they should get married after the alien threat has passed, she can only smile sadly at this hasty proposal and tell him that she honestly doesn't know how he'll ever adjust to regular civilian life again. After all, while she doesn't mention specifics, her high school boyfriend has hardened into someone able to send grown adults, disabled peers, and even his own family members to their deaths for the sake of the greater good. And finally, as this volume draws to a close, he becomes a mass murderer as well.

Could we quibble about that designation? Maybe. This is a series that regularly traffics in murky morality, and the Animorphs have certainly killed before. They've even done it less and less reluctantly over time, culminating in their terroristic bombing attack in the last book, knowing that thousands of enemy forces would be there feeding at the stronghold, temporarily out of their human bodies and in their naturally weaker slug-like forms. But the greater collective of Yeerks on the Pool ship, previously established as a reserve population not yet given a host? Those are helpless noncombatants: 17,372 of them, as Ax helpfully reads off a terminal display. And he and Jake flush them out to die in the cold vacuum of space, a drifting cloud of icy sludge on the bridge viewscreen that adds one final element to that climactic showdown against the weary visser. The dubious justification for this slaughter has divided the fan community for two decades now, but I'll note that the protagonist seems to have difficulty convincing himself to go through with it, pausing and using the dehumanizing language of "Aliens. Parasites. Subhuman." before he can bring himself to issue the command and subsequently racing to outrun his feelings of guilt.

We'll see fallout from all of this in the one remaining novel, which frenetically hops from narrator to narrator like a Megamorphs in all but name to chart the second half of this battle, and with it the epic conclusion of the entire Animorphs franchise. The ultimate fate of our beloved characters remains ahead, and it's unclear at this point whether anything could possibly heal the cumulative hurt they've inflicted and endured to reach this far, that bloody cost of war that seems to be Applegate's whole point in writing the saga. But you couldn't ask for a stronger lead-in than the awful rush of this penultimate adventure to get there.

[Content warning for body horror, torture, and gore.]

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[Grapie Deltaco · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t have the words.


CW: war, violence, death, grief, slavery, murder, mass murder, genocide, dated language referencing disability

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, we're getting close. This is the last Jake book, as well as the last normal book before the grand finale. It's a weird feeling, knowing we're almost done. With this, we are done with ghostwriters and Applegrant is back. Feels nice to just have the writing be normal, I don't have to say how it is. I will say we still get vocab stuff, of course.

Sadly I don't have much to say for this one. Plot wise we go on from where we left off, as the Animorphs have dealt a huge blow against the Yeerks so now they have totally taken off the kids gloves. It is full on war, no more secrets on either side. Now they gotta gear up for one final battle, to really ensure the Yeerks are done for, which means coming up with plans. And possibly teaming up with the Taxxons, as someone from the past returns.

This was really good, but for reasons I have been repeating a lot during all this. We get wrap up with the Jake/Cassie stuff which i didn't expect, it was a bit weird but nice to see. We yet again see the tough descions they have to make. There's some awful things they do here, so it makes sense Jake gets one last go through this plot. His whole arc is about dealing with being a leader, and going off the deep end. We see him want to do some terrible things, all in the name of ending this. We see that some of it is just not right, but it's where he's at now. It works well as a final Jake book.

Some tough stuff here that works pretty well. The Taxxons stuff is interesting, we see more of how the past few books are affecting everyone. Something from Andalite Chronicles comes back which is cool. Applegate says this was gonna be part of a Taxxon Chronicles book that fell through, at least it got used here. Also, the Chee do something here. After being in every book for a while, they vanished near the end, but here they come back and get a solid role

As far as complaints go, there's how those disabled kids get treated. I haven't brought them up much since they showed and that's because there's not been much to report. They basically weren't in 51, and in 52 they were there but didn't do too much. Here, they get more to do and we get more of them character wise, but not a ton. And ...well this is their last appearance and how they are dealt with is not great. It could have been done better, we'll leave it at that. It's the only thing here I'd knock points for though.

That aside, it's a really good one. Shame I can't say much without spoilers. But yeah, we get a lot of heavy stuff here that works. A lot is going on, not everything can be present but everything that matters is here and done well, minus those kids. This does feel more like a Part 1 for the finale, as it doesn't have a proper ending per say and has a wild cliffhanger.

That works though, it works well as basically the final battle, with the finale likely showing what happens after a certain thing and all that. This plants the seeds well and has a lot to offer. I wasn't sure how to rate this one, I prefer ones that are a tad more unique in how strong they are. But I know ahead of time I will have more complex thoughts on the ending and honestly who knows if that will get my higher rating.

My one problem isn't too bad, so eh screw it. You get at least one more higher rating, just in case. I don't know how many will agree but whatever, I can rate however I want. It's not totally perfect but it is strong, it gives us more of the thesis of the series and will gears us up for the ending. We know the ending won't be clean and it'll be interesting to see how it all plays out.

That wraps it up for this one, sorry it wasn't too detailed. I think I can make up for it though. As next time...well, we are indeed in the endgame now. Only one more book to go. One more final hurrah. Will things wrap up neatly? Not a chance. Will it fit as an ending, how much will I like it? We'll find out next week, as I finish this little mini project.

See ya then.

[Thistle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I'm reading this series for the first time as an adult. I have no fond memories coloring my reading.

Note on rating: If comparing to only Animorphs books, I'd rate this one a loved. It was one of the top 10 in the series. Compared to other books though, it doesn't quite reach a loved rating.

I've fought them for more than three years. I was just thirteen when I started.

Can you imagine a group of five children spending three years not just taking part in guerrilla warfare, but commanding it all, no support from any adults at all? And having to keep their efforts secret from everyone, their parents included?

Two or three books ago, there was a great line. I wish I had saved it. Jake, the leader of the Animorphs, was ordered by his mother to clean the basement. The battles were getting worse, the Animorphs were losing. He hadn't slept in days. He was in pain from wounds. And his mother still had the power to make him do chores.

What strikes me most about this book is how old their voices have become. This is a Jake POV book, and he sounds like a man. An old, old soldier with scores of battles under his belt.

We were just kids. But in some ways we were the ideal guerrilla fighters. The morphing power let us fly and dig and crawl, sense, hide, and fight with far more than human power. Our youth made us the least likely of suspects.

So different than the last couple books, in this one they start finally, finally making the hard calls. How hard? How about using a bunch of disabled children as cannon fodder? Knowingly let them die? Watching them get killed?

And not just disabled children:

Seventeen thousand. Living creatures. Thinking creatures. How could I give this order? Even
for victory. Even to save Rachel. How could I give this kind of order?

Aliens. Parasites. Subhuman.

"Kill them," I said.

That's what war is about, isn't it? Making the other side subhuman?

This book, the second to last one, ended on a cliffhanger, but a completely unexpected one.

[Amalia Dillin · Rating 5 out of 5]

AHHHH! THE FINAL SHOWDOWN!!! THE CULMINATION OF EVERYTHING BEGINS NOW!!!

Really glad this was Jake's book. Of course it had to be. And there are so many pieces in play.

But I feel like this book and the next book really cannot be reviewed separately so.

[Lo · Rating 5 out of 5]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Jenny Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, just wow.... and that ending... AND I DONT HAVE TIME TO FINISH 54 RIGHT NOW!!!!!!
So, literally all the secrets are out now. Jake is just as bad as Rachel in his blood thirstiness here. The Taxxons are great, just great, for adding another shade of grey, and Jake proposing to Cassie was sweet, but you can see by her reaction how she knows it will end... I can't really gather much more thoughts that that.

Oh, and I cried when James and his team were killed. Jake being able to just let it happen was chilling... This series man... Nothing can replace it at all...

Tobias said.
I answered.

My name is Jake.
My name is Jake Berenson. The days of secrecy, of lurking in the shadows are over. The Yeerks know my name. They know my height, weight, eye color, Social Security number, and favorite foods. At long last they know the word Animorph, Marco's word for us.
[...] They know it all now, the Yeerks do. All our names. All our deeds.
I've fought them for more than three years. I was just thirteen when I started. I'm sixteen now, though that fact, like so many facts, has been deliberately obscured in the secret accounts we've kept.
I'm a sixteen-year-old kid named Jake Berenson, and I am the leader of the Animorphs.
In the past it's been hard for me to say that, to take on the title of leader. In the past I've questioned myself. Wondered whether I was right, wondered whether what I did was good, wondered whether I had any right to make life-and-death decisions. I've felt sorry for myself at times. Maybe anyone would, in my spot.
But I had to put all that aside now. I had put it all aside. Not because I was suddenly convinced that I deserved the power, was worthy of it. That wasn't it. I knew better than to get too caught up in the myth of Mighty Jake the Yeerk Killer.
I had given up soul-searching because I realized now that it was simply too late. Way past too late. The battle had become a war. And I was, for better or worse, the only leader we had.
From here on out the second-guessing, the legitimate doubts, and the self-indulgent whining, they were over. Save them for my old age in the unlikely event that I ever had an old age.

But added to all that we had Marco's dad; Rachel's mom; James, the representative of our new, adjunct Animorphs; Tobias' mom; both of Cassie's parents, who only cared about making sure no one got hurt... too many people with too many agendas. But I still didn't know how to tell adults, my friends' parents no less, to be quiet and let me do my job.

"My daughter is not going to be dragged into some suicidal undertaking like this."
Rachel laughed. Rachel's not a person who'll be one way with her friends and another way with her family. There's only one version of Rachel. "Mom, if we go, I go. If we don't go, I still go. Visser One parks his Pool ship right out in the open and we're not going to ram it down his nonexistent throat? Hah! I'm with Marco: Blow it up. Blow it up real good."
I hid a grin. Rachel is the original Nike girl: Just do it. Just do it, and if that doesn't work, do it harder and meaner.

"We blew up one Yeerk pool," Rachel said cockily. "So we blow up another. Badda-boom. Nothing to it."
She knew better, of course. She was just playing her part. Not for the first time I wondered what on Earth would happen to her if this war ever ended. Off to college to study prelaw or whatever? She was the goddess of war, my cousin was. Sixteen years old and a veteran of more battles than a World War II veteran. So was I, but Rachel loved it in a way I didn't. She needed it.

"How do you hurt a hole in the ground?" Marco wondered.
Tobias suggested dubiously.
"With what?" Marco said.
Cassie started to say something, stopped herself. Then, gathering her courage, she blurted, "You can't worry about the hole, you have to destroy the digging equipment."

So I gave simple orders to my people, the original Animorphs, and the auxiliary Animorphs, and Toby's free Hork-Bajir. Orders I had never given before: Kill the enemy. Kill the Taxxons.
Dress it up however you want, that's what war is about. If there's glory in there somewhere, I must have missed it.

No one said anything. I was braced for something from Cassie. Surely she would raise some sort of moral objection to this straightforward slaughter. But she remained silent. Hard to know what she would object to. It was always a question of balance for her, I guess. She was committed to winning, believed in our cause, understood that there would be terrible things to be done. But she found some things, and not other things, to be over the line. Me, I barely knew where the line was anymore. I'd come to depend on Cassie to keep me from going too far.
Nothing from Cassie.



I didn't know what to say. Too much to absorb. An entire species wanting to morph?

"I guess if we win, if we survive, maybe we should, you know, get married and all. I mean, eventually. I know we're young, but man, we've been through enough that it should count for a few extra years, shouldn't it?"

Tom's face smirked. "Little brother, you've got to know by now: Wars aren't won with clean hands."
"Don't listen to him," Cassie said, but it was almost a whisper.
"What do you have to offer?" I asked Tom.
"The keys to the kingdom, kid. I can give you the access codes for every system on the Pool ship. If you can take it, Brother Jake, you and your free Hork-Bajir and your new Taxxon allies, if you can take it, I can tell you how to fly it. Not only that, I have a plan to help you get aboard the Pool ship. And by the way, your old friend Visser One has temporarily transferred his headquarters to the Pool ship. The Pool ship and Visser One -- that's game, set, and match." He grinned at me and said, "They'll carve your sanctimonious face up on Mount Rushmore, Jake-Boy. You'll be the savior of the human race."


Cassie asked.
I said.

It came to me all at once that I could beat him. Use him and beat him.
One of those rare, perfect moments when a dozen nagging questions, an infinity of details, simply fall perfectly into place and form a single clear picture.
It took my breath away. The perfection of it. The pure, ruthless perfection of it.
All I had to do was send my friends to die.
Cassie was still talking to me, but I didn't hear her words. I had seen the vision. I could see the pure, straight line from point A to point Z.

I felt sick inside. High and low at once. Exalted. Twisted.
What chance was there that Marco would succeed? What chance that he would survive?
And worse in store for Rachel. I needed Tobias and could not risk losing Ax. Cassie? No. It had to be Rachel. Only she would do it, could do it.
I had a few small changes to make to Tom's plan. The orders came easily, automatically as I dispatched my friends, one after the other. Only Rachel remained.



Rachel said angrily.
I said.
Rachel said,
She angled her eagle's wings to take the wind, and flew away.
The plan was a fragile thing in my mind, a construct of if-then possibilities, of hopes, optimism, and cynicism in equal measure.
I would use everyone, put everyone in harm's way. And I knew beyond any doubt -- that someone, and maybe more than someone, I loved was going to die.

"It's going to be as dangerous as it gets, and I have a very tough assignment for you."
"Okay, well, you know I'm in. But I'll need to talk to the others, see how they feel. I think some of them will want to sit this one out. I mean, after losing Ray... I mean, Jake, some of the young ones, you know, some of them are having--"
"James, we didn't give them morphing power so they could have fun flying around. This is when we need them. All of them. You understand? You've taken on the role as their leader, so lead: I want them all. Every last one."
"Jake, some of these kids, I mean, they're all their families have, you know? They're still just starting to deal with Ray's death. It's not like we haven't fought. I can't..."
"Look, if we lose this battle it's over, you understand me?!" I raised my voice to be heard by everyone. "If we lose it's over. This is the battle. This is the last stand. We lose and here's what happens: The Yeerk fleet fights the Andalite fleet. If the Yeerks win they'll be free to enslave every living human being and kill the ones they don't want. If the Andalites win there's a very good chance they'll sterilize Earth: kill everything in order to end the Yeerk menace once and for all. So, you don't like me telling you what to do, you don't like your job, you don't like me, period? I don't really care. Before this night is over the casualties will be piled high and some of you standing here right now will be dead and I don't care because we are going to win. Is that clear? We're taking that Pool ship and before this night is over we'll have Visser One right here." I held up my tight-clenched fist.
I was ranting. I was trembling. I'd never done this before. Never put myself forward as some kind of Napoleon wannabe. I felt like a jerk. Like some kind of nut. My friends must have thought I'd lost my mind. But no one said so.
No one but Marco. "You know, you're turning into Rachel." He frowned. "Where is she, anyway?"

If they fired the main Dracon cannon on widest dispersion it would not kill the men on the ground quickly. It would kill them slowly. They would cook. They would grow warmer and warmer, as the diluted Dracon energy heated them up. Hotter. Hotter till some began to pass out. Others would go crazy as their brains fried. And then the men, those already dead and those who still clung to life, would burn.


I felt sick inside. I should do something. I should stop this. That was the auxiliary Animorphs down there on the ground dying. Burning.
[...] It was a death sentence. Three minutes. More than enough time for the sharpshooters on the bridge. Too much time.
They fired.
If I demorphed here I'd be seen. Nowhere to hide. I'd be shot. Killed. Accomplish nothing.
Couldn't die. I was in charge. It was my plan. No time for gestures. Win, that was all I had to do: Win.
Visser One said,

[Visser One] was trembling. I could feel it so clearly. I savored his fear and rage. I had watched, helpless, while he murdered James and his people. Watched while he gloated.
Now I wanted him to feel afraid.
Visser One said harshly.
And silently I replied, Yes, it does.

"Oh, Jake..." Cassie cried.
Tobias began.
"I can't let him get away," I said dully. "Tom's Yeerk... A Blade ship, probably the morphing cube? You were right, Cassie, I can't let that happen."

I exploded. "It's not Tom! It's not Tom, don't call him that. It's the Yeerk in his head. It's the Yeerk, not my brother!"
No one even looked shocked at my reaction. No one was in his right mind at that moment. Tobias hated me, hated me, I could feel it, and I hated myself.
Had to be another way. I couldn't kill Rachel. Not my cousin Rachel, not after all the times she had saved my life.

We ran from that place, ran from thoughts of what we'd done. Ran for the bridge. His fault, it was Visser One's fault, all of it. Who had started this war? Not us. We hadn't asked for it.
It was him. Him and his filthy, subhuman, parasitic race.
His fault. Not mine. Not mine.

he said almost softly,

[Chelsea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poor Jake! His PTSD is very prevalent here. This is it though, like the war is just about at their doorsteps and quick decisions have to be made, there's no time to weigh the consequences. I will say by this point, Cassie is cemented as my least favorite of the group. It was a bit much to listen to Jake mope around so much, but like, I get why he was? It's just such a short book and that cliffhanger ending!

[Kate Crabtree · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite the rather ingenious, neat and tidy plan Jake and the rest of the Animorphs craft to take down the Yeerks in The Answer, everything else is messyyyyyyyyy.

There's no point in detailing the plan except to say that it's brilliant. Jake has come into his own as a mastermind leader- he is able to take the advice given by the Animorphs and auxiliary team members, know which he should utilize and not utilize, and craft a stunning plan. However, the more he taps into being a leader, the more he uses his friends, to the point where it seems impossible that he could ever remain friends with them after the war. Can a good leader, after all, be good friends with his troops?

A few notes:
-Jake tells Cassie he believes he can live a normal life after the war and looks forward to when he can really be together with her. She tells him she'll consider being with him one year after the war ends, should they even live that long. He's disappointed. I think Cassie realizes their relationship is doomed.

-Once again, Cassie is the first to realize the ideal plan, which is nasty. The only way to stop the Yeerks from creating a new Yeerk pool is to decimate all the Taxxons. Nobody has any real soft spot for the Taxxons, but they've never been given an order to decimate their enemies. Luckily, Jake meets Arbron (Arbron!) and the Taxxons ask to defect, and all they ask in return is to morph to a creature that is similar to themselves and isn't as hungry. Anaconda it is! They're impressed.

-Jake puts Rachel into a situation into a situation that will likely mean she dies in order to ensure the Yeerks are defeated. He keeps this from everyone until the bitter end. Tobias is FURIOUS when he finds out. Rachel seems like she's into it, of course. Once again, Jake has gotten to a place where he's not afraid to use his friends.

-Jake forces Eryk to help them. He's also furious, but since he's literally dragged along he does what he can to help. However, in return, he drains the ship's engines to ensure that it can't shoot the Blade ship. Oh Eryk.

-Ax suggests they drain the Yeerk pool, effectively killing all the Yeerks in the pool. Jake okays this. Ax informs him that the pool is at capacity and currently houses SEVENTEEN THOUSAND YEERKS. Jake briefly pauses- he is "rocked," and calls the Yeerks "subhuman" but makes the call. I don't know how he'll ever live with that. He does a lot of justifying as he thinks about what he's done- he even says, "they could have stayed home," but he seems to realize, deep down, that what he's done is pretty horrific.

-All of the disabled Animorphs die in this book as they provide a diversion, which is pretty traumatic, especially since James does not want to commit all of his team to this mission (they’re still grappling with a death of their own) but Jake insists they all must be there.

- We finally learn the Animorphs were 13 when they met Elfangor and are now currently 16. They’ve been at this for THREE YEARS.

I have one more Animorphs book left to go (well, save for the Alternamorphs, but we're going to pretend those were never written). In the words of Rachel... "Let's do it."

[Jonathan Pongratz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Original Review at Jaunts & Haunts

4.5/5

I gave this book four and a half stars, but I take no pleasure in it.

This was easily the most heart-wrenching Animorphs book to date. It hurt to read it at times, and many times I simply wanted to throw my Kindle against the wall or break it into a million pieces. Good job, Applegate.

This is the final single-POV installment of the series, and it makes sense that it's in Jake's perspective. The Animorphs destroyed the Yeerk pool and the war is in full swing, but the Yeerks are moving quickly to create a new Yeerk pool on ground while a Yeerk pool ship hovers nearby. The Animorphs have time for one final attack, and if they fail, death is guaranteed. Can they pull this off, or will Earth finally succumb to the Yeerks?

Jake, Jake, Jake. What is happening to you? It was hard to read this book, one of the reasons being that the war is beginning to get to Jake. Similar to Rachel's inner darkness, he has to make horrible decisions in an effort to save the human race. No teen should have that kind of weight on their shoulders. However, unlike Rachel's emotional struggle, Jake's feel cold, emotionless. Though it's not really said, you can tell he's given up on ever being reunited with his family. Can you even imagine?

Minor quip with her perspective. I know what Applegate was going for with his personality shift, but I think we should've seen a bit more warmth to Jake. Even the sensitive bits felt a little icy for him, but then again, I've never been in a terrible war against alien invaders.

The others were portrayed well, but it's all very tense the whole way through give the situation.

The plot was riveting but definitely gave me some mental scar tissue. If you've been reading up until this point, I suggest putting up your best mental wall to get through this one. Obviously I can't say much without spoiling it, but my heart hurt reading some of these scenes. Sacrifices are needed to make this plan work, and I prayed it wouldn't happen, but Applegate is not sugar-coating anymore. No more easy wins. Everything is on the line, and things are getting dark, very dark. Regardless, this one was action-packed, so if you love that, then you'll love what happens in this one.

Just thinking about this read gives me the chills, but it was a great continuation for our beloved Animorphs and I can't wait to read the final book. 

[Kirk · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is ramping up wonderfully.

This book ends on a cliffhanger, so 53 and 54 are essentially a single book in my eyes. The best book in the series.

But you have to read several of the others to really get a sense of what is happening here.

I skipped around, reading only the most important books in the series, but I missed some important stuff, and I’m starting to wish I’d read everything from 31 or so onward. I may go back later this year and read more.

The auxiliary animorphs for example-the animorphs created from handicapped children the yeerks wouldn’t invade-that was a great idea that I would have liked to read more about. Poor kids.

So I’ll be going back for that later.

You really notice Jake’s change in this book as well. He’s tainted now, corrupted by war. Will he be able to turn it around? Man, he made some ruthless decisions here (there’s a word that gets overused in this series, especially in relation to Marco).

I know the next (and last) book is going to be nasty as hell. I’m not sure I’m ready for it, but it is sitting on my dining room table when I am.

[Tulsi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, the final three chapters of this series blew me away. I'm so impressed with the ending, and although the last ten or so books were pretty average, these ones really brought it together. I think it's fantastic when author's don't shelter their audiences from some of the harsh realities of the world, and when the Animorphs stop being so honourable and start being more ruthless, it gets all the more interesting. This was amazing, Jake has probably become the most complex character now.

[Harold Coutts · Rating 5 out of 5]

ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Jay DeMoir · Rating 4 out of 5]

action packed! aggressive and thought provoking. can't believe there's only 1 book left! Jake is a SAVAGE! But it's neccessary. Definitely enjoyed this one.

[Justice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ahhhh!! Jake's ruthlessness, the way the battle is playing out, it's all.... so good.

this book includes one of the hardest scenes to read of the whole series. It's when James's group of animorphs, after James practically begging not to make them fight, are shot down by Visser One while he laughed at them.

[Muffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t believe how close we are to the end. Everything is terrible and everyone has to do the one thing they specifically never want to do. Teens do war crimes and die. And increasingly the characters wonder: what can the peace look like after this? I really can’t wait to finish.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wowowow. This book is the turning point in every arc and no one is safe physically, mentally, or emotionally. I cried at the start of Chapter 2 and didn't stop.