Reviews with content warning for Slavery - Người Lạ

Oh man, this series just keeps getting more and more interesting! This one is by far my favorite with the Rachel's character being really interesting and the things she goes through being realistic even though this book has aliens in it.
I like how these books don't really hold back, they are extremely dark and violent for kids books with limbs being cut off multiple times throughout the novel.
These books feel like episodes in a series with so much stuff going on and yet barely any actual progress, I love it! Can't wait to read the next book in the series, the first Megamorphs.

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faesissa's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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ramiel's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Another one bites the dust. Here's our second Rachel book which includes: more background and development for Rachel's character specifically (especially as her role as "the brave, violent one" and also as the child of a divorced couple), more trauma for the kids, the first time Rachel morphs grizzly bear (doubling as the first time she loses her bear arm YES I'M GOING TO MAKE THE JOKE), and the first look at the enigmatic Ellimist who pops in to annoy the kids and cheat at his own game.

"But if I was so brave and so strong, why was I suddenly imagining a very different life, a long, long way from the war with the Yeerks?"

I've said this before and I'll say it a hundred times: Rachel is my favorite character in the series. She's been one of my favorite fictional characters for literal decades. While the other kids' books generally do include development for each other, it's obvious that the books they narrate are the ones that they'll really shine in.

This book starts off with our very simple, base view of Rachel: the "violent" one who "wants to be strong to protect the weak". Rachel sees an elephant being mistreated by a circus performer, turns into an elephant herself, threatens him, and then tosses him into a tent. While Jake and Marco are annoyed by this, not a single person in the group is surprised, which Rachel sums up as "[e]veryone knows I'm going to do what I feel like doing."

The rest of the book goes on to show something different.

Very quickly, two ways "out" of the war present themselves to Rachel. Her father is moving to a new state and offers to take Rachel with him, and the Ellimist goes one further by offering to take all of the kids and their families away from Earth to a new planet to "preserve the human race". She is a child, barely a teenager, and she has a full identity crisis because she doesn't believe she can be "brave" if she even considers "giving up on fighting" as an option at all. Still, she's been traumatized, and it's understandable that she is tempted by the two decisions, even if she disagrees. This crisis leads to her acting out recklessly, she goes alone to the Gardens at night to acquire a grizzly bear, skips school one day, and even plays loose with the two hour time limit.

Because of these two decisions she has to make, for most of the book, Rachel has no idea what she wants to do. And so what she does do for most of the book, at least outwardly, is what she thinks others would think she would do. I think the best example of this comes the first time the Ellimist offers a new planet to the kids. Marco counts the votes for who's for and who's against the offer. He automatically counts Rachel as against, which Rachel internally reminds us she hasn't even voted yet, but goes along with it because that's who she's supposed to be. When the option comes up again later, Rachel finally cracks in front of the others when Marco tries to lighten the mood with his usual teasing nickname for her (Xena, Warrior Princess). She's scared, she's just watched an older, Controller version of herself mock her for her choices and it's scared her. What's more: she's tired, and she just wants out.

The Ellimist is also a very interesting character, to say the least. As a child, I never understood the nuances in his character and chalked him up as a "calm wise old man" type, which this book in itself both builds up and then deconstructs in a way. His offer to the kids was never genuine, and I'm guessing it led to many people at the time questioning his motives. (This, of course, is one book after we first see the Crayak, but several before we get to know who he even is.) The set up as his character being a hands-off god secretly finding loopholes in his own game to get his desired outcome is so fascinating and subtle, I love that this is how he was introduced.

- THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH HAS SPOILERS FOR THE REST OF THE SERIES / ENDGAME FINALE -

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Further: I'm not sure if it was planned, but as someone who's finished the series there is so much emotion behind this book, the Ellimist's introduction, being told in Rachel's point of view. That she is the first one in this book to understand what the Ellimist is really trying to tell them (followed very closely by Cassie) just makes the fact that she is the only one he tells his entire story to all the more poignant. This book showed the Ellimist giving a choice, and however phony it was Rachel still had to think about it, Rachel had to consider what was important and had to figure out what it was he wanted them to do.

So that later, when she dies for everyone and he comes to take her away and tell her you were strong, you were brave, you were good, you mattered just very literally makes me cry from their connection alone.

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