mo3rgan's review against another edition
3.0
I read the first 13 Animorphs books as a child, and then re-read them and finished the series as an adult.
These books are so fun. There is never a slow moment. The books have some dark moments that may be difficult for children (or adults), and some over-explaining that might be annoying for adults (or children). Overall, they were a fun and easy read.
Here are some observations I had while reading the series:
For better or worse, each book is written with the consideration that somebody may have picked it up without having read any of the prior books. This means that somewhere in the first few chapters of each book is a brief description of each character and a synopsis of the series so far. I certainly understand the benefit, but it feels awfully silly reading “Marco is the funny one” and “Rachel is a fierce warrior like Xena” 54 times.
The series is narrated by the main characters. They don’t use their last names, or the name of their city, because they need to keep their identities secret from the yeerks. This is a cute narrative device, but it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Who is supposed to be reading these books, and when? The animorphs take steps to pretend that they’re not human, so it would be counterproductive to publish their adventures in real time, regardless of what names they use. There seems to be only one population center of yeerks on earth, so the enemy should be able to quickly guess where the animorphs live.
The animorphs try to avoid being seen together too often, for reasons that I don’t understand. They don’t want their vice principal or other yeerks to see a group of four teenagers, and somehow connect them to the group of six animals who keep appearing. This makes absolutely no sense to me.
The main villain, Visser Three, appears in (I think) every single book in the series. He would have felt a lot more effective if he appeared less often. It’s kind of hard to be afraid of a villain who gets foiled 54 times.
In one of the books, the animorphs have to travel a long distance, so they morph into flies and sneak onto an airplane. I kept wondering “why don’t they morph into migrating birds?” 35 books later, they morph into ducks and comment that they should have done so sooner. I felt very satisfied reading that.
The animorphs’ battle morphs are tiger, grizzly bear, gorilla, wolf, and red-tailed hawk. I think a red-tailed hawk would be in way over his head in most of these fights, and the wolf would also be a little underpowered. I’m surprised that they didn’t get better morphs later in the series.
I remember noticing a continuity error in the first book when I was a child. Re-reading it, the error was gone. Apparently, the publisher released revised versions of the first few books with errors fixed, and references to present-day technology added.
Somewhere around book 23, the quality started to get very inconsistent. I got as far as book 31, and then found a list of which books are essential and which can be skipped.
The animorphs get way too lucky sometimes. There are numerous situations in which they are about to be captured or killed, and a deus ex machina saves them.
Speaking of deus ex machina, the animorphs have allies, the Chee, who are super intelligent androids, capable of creating lifelike holograms of whatever they want. The Chee have infiltrated the yeerks, and often provide convenient information about them. In one book, the animorphs have to travel far, so the chee take the places of the animorphs in their home life, so nobody notices that they are gone. Having such overpowered allies somewhat cheapened the struggle of the main characters.
As with any YA series, Animorphs tries to avoid having the protagonists kill anybody. Sometimes this is handled well, as in books 19 and 50, which include thoughtful meditations on whether it is okay to kill one person in order to save the planet. Sometimes it is handled poorly, as with the taxxons, an evil alien race who voluntarily joined with the parasitic yeerks, and is so ravenously hungry that they will cannibalize any fellow taxxons who shed blood, thus taking the burden of killing off of the animorphs. Granted, Applegate deserves credit for giving the Taxxons some more depth at the end of the series.
When a human is captured, they are taken to the yeerk pool to be infested, which usually gives the animorphs enough time to save them. However, yeerks are able to live outside of the yeerk pool for a few days, so there’s no reason for infestation to be such a slow process. One controlled human could just carry around a bag of yeerks and shove them in people’s ears until the entire planet was infested.
In book 19, one of the characters is a child who was taken by the yeerks in an effort to get to her father. This raises the question of how she gets to the yeerk pool every three days if her parents aren’t yeerks. Where do they think she’s going? At the end of the book, her yeerk decides to free her, which means that she must have been able to walk out of the yeerk pool without a yeerk in her head, and nobody noticed.
Books 20-22 are a trilogy about a new kid joining the group. Plotwise, these books are even more contrived than the rest of the series. The plot is filled with weird coincidences, and doesn’t hold up to scrutiny at all. However, if you can suspend a lot of disbelief, these become some of the best books in the series. They have some of the best fight scenes, and pack a strong emotional punch.
These books are so fun. There is never a slow moment. The books have some dark moments that may be difficult for children (or adults), and some over-explaining that might be annoying for adults (or children). Overall, they were a fun and easy read.
Here are some observations I had while reading the series:
For better or worse, each book is written with the consideration that somebody may have picked it up without having read any of the prior books. This means that somewhere in the first few chapters of each book is a brief description of each character and a synopsis of the series so far. I certainly understand the benefit, but it feels awfully silly reading “Marco is the funny one” and “Rachel is a fierce warrior like Xena” 54 times.
The series is narrated by the main characters. They don’t use their last names, or the name of their city, because they need to keep their identities secret from the yeerks. This is a cute narrative device, but it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Who is supposed to be reading these books, and when? The animorphs take steps to pretend that they’re not human, so it would be counterproductive to publish their adventures in real time, regardless of what names they use. There seems to be only one population center of yeerks on earth, so the enemy should be able to quickly guess where the animorphs live.
The animorphs try to avoid being seen together too often, for reasons that I don’t understand. They don’t want their vice principal or other yeerks to see a group of four teenagers, and somehow connect them to the group of six animals who keep appearing. This makes absolutely no sense to me.
The main villain, Visser Three, appears in (I think) every single book in the series. He would have felt a lot more effective if he appeared less often. It’s kind of hard to be afraid of a villain who gets foiled 54 times.
In one of the books, the animorphs have to travel a long distance, so they morph into flies and sneak onto an airplane. I kept wondering “why don’t they morph into migrating birds?” 35 books later, they morph into ducks and comment that they should have done so sooner. I felt very satisfied reading that.
The animorphs’ battle morphs are tiger, grizzly bear, gorilla, wolf, and red-tailed hawk. I think a red-tailed hawk would be in way over his head in most of these fights, and the wolf would also be a little underpowered. I’m surprised that they didn’t get better morphs later in the series.
I remember noticing a continuity error in the first book when I was a child. Re-reading it, the error was gone. Apparently, the publisher released revised versions of the first few books with errors fixed, and references to present-day technology added.
Somewhere around book 23, the quality started to get very inconsistent. I got as far as book 31, and then found a list of which books are essential and which can be skipped.
The animorphs get way too lucky sometimes. There are numerous situations in which they are about to be captured or killed, and a deus ex machina saves them.
Speaking of deus ex machina, the animorphs have allies, the Chee, who are super intelligent androids, capable of creating lifelike holograms of whatever they want. The Chee have infiltrated the yeerks, and often provide convenient information about them. In one book, the animorphs have to travel far, so the chee take the places of the animorphs in their home life, so nobody notices that they are gone. Having such overpowered allies somewhat cheapened the struggle of the main characters.
As with any YA series, Animorphs tries to avoid having the protagonists kill anybody. Sometimes this is handled well, as in books 19 and 50, which include thoughtful meditations on whether it is okay to kill one person in order to save the planet. Sometimes it is handled poorly, as with the taxxons, an evil alien race who voluntarily joined with the parasitic yeerks, and is so ravenously hungry that they will cannibalize any fellow taxxons who shed blood, thus taking the burden of killing off of the animorphs. Granted, Applegate deserves credit for giving the Taxxons some more depth at the end of the series.
When a human is captured, they are taken to the yeerk pool to be infested, which usually gives the animorphs enough time to save them. However, yeerks are able to live outside of the yeerk pool for a few days, so there’s no reason for infestation to be such a slow process. One controlled human could just carry around a bag of yeerks and shove them in people’s ears until the entire planet was infested.
In book 19, one of the characters is a child who was taken by the yeerks in an effort to get to her father. This raises the question of how she gets to the yeerk pool every three days if her parents aren’t yeerks. Where do they think she’s going? At the end of the book, her yeerk decides to free her, which means that she must have been able to walk out of the yeerk pool without a yeerk in her head, and nobody noticed.
Books 20-22 are a trilogy about a new kid joining the group. Plotwise, these books are even more contrived than the rest of the series. The plot is filled with weird coincidences, and doesn’t hold up to scrutiny at all. However, if you can suspend a lot of disbelief, these become some of the best books in the series. They have some of the best fight scenes, and pack a strong emotional punch.
jdglasgow's review against another edition
4.0
The highs of the series are very high. I love it, I do, and all of the characters’ fraying psyches and struggled with morality and the horrors of war and the way it changes a person. It’s an incredibly bleak, but never less than thrilling story.
But the lows are incredibly low. There are stupid side stories (cough cough HELMACRONS cough), some bad writing from the ghostwriters, obvious mistakes, inattention to characters. That’s what holds me back from giving the full 5 stars.
The stuff that’s good is VERY, VERY good. Heartbreaking, lovely, exciting, cinematic. I just can’t completely gloss over the bad, and it is as much a part of Animorphs as the good is.
Nevertheless, I absolutely recommend this series to anybody, perhaps adults especially. It’s intense. It’s very emotionally moving. It’s really a spectacular thing; I’m so glad that I went back and read them all again.
But the lows are incredibly low. There are stupid side stories (cough cough HELMACRONS cough), some bad writing from the ghostwriters, obvious mistakes, inattention to characters. That’s what holds me back from giving the full 5 stars.
The stuff that’s good is VERY, VERY good. Heartbreaking, lovely, exciting, cinematic. I just can’t completely gloss over the bad, and it is as much a part of Animorphs as the good is.
Nevertheless, I absolutely recommend this series to anybody, perhaps adults especially. It’s intense. It’s very emotionally moving. It’s really a spectacular thing; I’m so glad that I went back and read them all again.
adambroud's review against another edition
5.0
This year I made one New Years Resolution, and that resolution was to reread all of the Animorphs books. It was a great choice. My life has been made better for it.
I grew up reading these books and anxiously waiting for each month's new release at the library. I remember the children's librarian even holding the books for me even before I could reserve them because she knew I would come in looking for it as soon as I was able. I loved these books as a kid and I'm happy to say I still love them.
There are a lot of books in the series. 54 regular books, 4 chronicles, and 4 megamorphs books. Not all of them are necessarily 5 star rating (I'm looking at you split Rachel star fish book. And you too morphing buffalo book), but the majority of the books are seriously great. They deal with pretty mature themes for a children's book series. The books talk about responsibility, war, sacrifice, ptsd, racism, family, and honestly very little about the cheesy cliche topics like school romance that you usually see in books aimed at tweens. Each book does have practically the same intro, which got a little tiring, but other than that, these books are the greatest children series ever written.
I grew up reading these books and anxiously waiting for each month's new release at the library. I remember the children's librarian even holding the books for me even before I could reserve them because she knew I would come in looking for it as soon as I was able. I loved these books as a kid and I'm happy to say I still love them.
There are a lot of books in the series. 54 regular books, 4 chronicles, and 4 megamorphs books. Not all of them are necessarily 5 star rating (I'm looking at you split Rachel star fish book. And you too morphing buffalo book), but the majority of the books are seriously great. They deal with pretty mature themes for a children's book series. The books talk about responsibility, war, sacrifice, ptsd, racism, family, and honestly very little about the cheesy cliche topics like school romance that you usually see in books aimed at tweens. Each book does have practically the same intro, which got a little tiring, but other than that, these books are the greatest children series ever written.
cutiejoy's review against another edition
4.25
I wish I had read this series when I was younger. The quality fell off a little with the ghost writing, but it was still fascinating; "horror, war, dehumanization, sanity, morality, innocence, leadership, freedom, family, and growing up". Rachel was probably my favorite. The tragedy of all these characters, these child soldiers !! What you do in war will haunt you for the rest of your life, it's a zero sum game, radical politics are necessary to end the bloodshed, etc etc etc.
- "Do you know what it’s like to think that you’re going to die, and never even get back to human form? To believe that you’re going to die as an ant, trapped in a hell that no human had ever been to?"
- "Nature at its finest. Cute, cuddly animals who slaughtered to live. The color of nature wasn’t green. It was red. Bloodred."
- "...win or lose, right or wrong, the memory of violence sits inside your head. It sits there, like some lump you can’t quite swallow. It sits there, a black hole that darkens hope, and eats away at everyday happiness like a cancer. It’s the shadow you take into your own heart and try to live with."
- "We made it back home okay. No one swatted me and I felt better for getting past the fear. At least that’s what I told myself. You never really get past the fear. Fear eats a little hole in you, like rust in the fender of a car. You fill the hole up with putty and sand it smooth and paint it over so no one else can see it. But it’s never really as good as new."
- “You almighty Andalites. There is no limit to your arrogance, is there? Well, let me tell you something: We may be simple people. But we don’t use biology to invent monsters. And we don’t enslave other species. And we don’t unleash a plague of parasites on the galaxy, endangering every other free species, and then go swaggering around like the lords of the universe. No, we’re too simple for all that. We’re too stupid to lie and manipulate. We’re too stupid to be ruthless. We’re too stupid to know how to build powerful weapons designed to annihilate our enemies. Until you came, Andalite, we were too stupid to know how to kill.”
- "Those that were still alive wouldn’t be for long. And I’d have been dead myself, but for the protection of men whose flesh protected mine."
- "Nobody talked about it. But everybody knew it was there. The secret was that whatever we’d been doing, I did like it. And the good guys aren’t supposed to like it."
- "I wanted so much to live. I wanted so much to stay and not to leave. In a moment no answer would matter to me, but just the same, I wanted to know what I guess any dying person wants to know. 'Answer this, Ellimist: Did I ... did I make a difference? My life, and my ... my death ... was I worth it? Did my life really matter?' 'Yes,' he said. 'You were brave. You were strong. You were good. You mattered.' 'Yeah. Okay, then. Okay, then.' I wondered if -"
- "I still cared for Cassie, for all of them. I always would. My life was divided into three parts: before, during, and after the war. And that middle section was so overwhelming, so big, so intense, it made the other two portions seem dim and dark and dull. That’s how I felt now, pretty much all the time. Dark. Dull. Slow and stupid. Distracted, but not by anything in particular. Just like there was something else I should be thinking about but I couldn’t recall what it was."
fabyalexaa's review against another edition
5.0
I have been a bookworm for my entire life, and yet this series really got to me. I read one book when I was a kid and since I am now on a quest to reread all my childhood books in my early twenties I stumbled upon this series.
From start to finish it is amazing (ok, the ending not so much, I felt a tad robbed). I fell in love with the characters and got to the point where I could almost predict what one of them would say beforehand.
Don't just wave this off as a another stupid kids series because you will be missing out on so much. Give it a chance and you'll find that it teaches a lot of life values and lessons in between the lines.
From start to finish it is amazing (ok, the ending not so much, I felt a tad robbed). I fell in love with the characters and got to the point where I could almost predict what one of them would say beforehand.
Don't just wave this off as a another stupid kids series because you will be missing out on so much. Give it a chance and you'll find that it teaches a lot of life values and lessons in between the lines.
littlelarks's review against another edition
5.0
Am going to do a full review of this series here, because 54 books + spin-offs is astronomical amount that I really don't want to flood my profile with.
Also because, truly, the quality of the series varies dramatically between those 54 volumes (particularly whether said volume was ghost-written or not).
But despite that wildly fluctuating quality, Animorphs is THE BEST Young Adult series I've ever read, and defines my childhood more than any other series.
Amongst the adorable 90s culture and puns and humor is a devastating portrayal of war, sacrifice, and PTSD... and an ending which still makes me bawl to this day.
Also because, truly, the quality of the series varies dramatically between those 54 volumes (particularly whether said volume was ghost-written or not).
But despite that wildly fluctuating quality, Animorphs is THE BEST Young Adult series I've ever read, and defines my childhood more than any other series.
Amongst the adorable 90s culture and puns and humor is a devastating portrayal of war, sacrifice, and PTSD... and an ending which still makes me bawl to this day.
jordanjay29's review against another edition
4.0
It's that same old story. Aliens invade Earth and this group of kids are the only ones who can stop them, right?
Okay, sure, but the coolest thing about the Animorphs was the power of morphing. Not only did it empower them to become any animal via a simple touch, but they got a firsthand peek into the minds of other creatures, and by extension, so did the readers. As educational as it was exciting, Animorphs is really a book series that many ages can enjoy.
The writing can have its ups and downs, and suffers somewhat after Book 24 when the series was taken over by ghostwriters so Applegate could write the Everworld series (she still had a hand in the books, but she didn't write every word at that point). Regardless, these books are fun to read as a kid and as an adult (with the bonus of finding much deeper meaning in some of the conflicts when reading as an adult), and they age well even if the Animorphs don't all have cellphones like modern kids.
Okay, sure, but the coolest thing about the Animorphs was the power of morphing. Not only did it empower them to become any animal via a simple touch, but they got a firsthand peek into the minds of other creatures, and by extension, so did the readers. As educational as it was exciting, Animorphs is really a book series that many ages can enjoy.
The writing can have its ups and downs, and suffers somewhat after Book 24 when the series was taken over by ghostwriters so Applegate could write the Everworld series (she still had a hand in the books, but she didn't write every word at that point). Regardless, these books are fun to read as a kid and as an adult (with the bonus of finding much deeper meaning in some of the conflicts when reading as an adult), and they age well even if the Animorphs don't all have cellphones like modern kids.