Reviews with content warning for Gore - The Reaction

This is a fun one, though admittedly not one I would say is one of the better books in the series. Still, Rachel has my favorite narration, and while the plot is weird... there's much weirder plots and also the horror of it all is peak.

I also must admit it's the book that actually taught me how to pronounce "andalite". No, I don't remember how I pronounced it before, but I know it was incredibly off, because I remember the simplicity of "and a light" just absolutely baffled me as a child. This is also the book where the "Nice is Neat" joke comes in which I think is just beautiful.

Anyway, the general overarching plot summary is: a tween heartthrob celeb is in danger of becoming a Controller - apparently a voluntary one, which devastates Rachel and Cassie because they are not immune to tween heartthrob celebs. He plans on promoting the Sharing, which means thousands of young girls will almost definitely follow, putting them in danger of becoming Controllers as well. Unfortunately, Rachel has a little morphing problem, and it's making achieving this mission very hard.

See, I knew I was okay. Because all I had to do was to control my emotions. Just stay unemotional, and I wouldn't go into uncontrolled morphs. And I'm good at handling emotion.

Except anger, maybe. I have a small problem with anger.

Despite the plot itself being about tween heartthrob Jeremy Jason McCole (apparently the fictional counterpart to Jonathan Taylor Thomas who played a character on Home Improvement in the 90s? I was under the impression he was supposed to be Kirk Cameron from Growing Pains, but that was an 80s show - I was five years old when this book came out time wasn't real), the focus of the book itself is actually around Rachel's little morphing problem. On my Twitter and I think in my review for The Forgotten (the last book) I mention I think this cycle's theme is "breaking yourself to keep fitting your role", but honestly I'm wondering now if its "okay let's introduce some universe breaking mechanics into play", because holy shit the mechanics to being allergic to a morph are weird as hell.

I wonder if this book paved the road for the incredibly weird one where a literal ant and buffalo get morphing powers because... weird.

Anyway, the universe breaker in this one isn't as massive as Jake's time travel and death in the last book (or in what we're going to be getting in Tobias's book next, I'm very excited to re-read that one). Rachel acquires a crocodile after jumping into a crocodile pit at the Gardens to save a child and it turns out she's "allergic" to it - the symptoms of which apparently involve spontaneous and uncontrollable morphing when too emotional, including morphing straight from one morph to another (which isn't otherwise possible: the rules of morphing are that you must return to your original form before going into a new morph). As the plot revolves around "being a teen and finding out your celebrity crush is an asshole and then having to save him from a fate worse from death anyway", there's a lot for Rachel to be emotional with, even when she thinks she shouldn't. This one is mostly lighthearted compared to your average Animorphs book (not to say it's 100% lighthearted and funny, its an Animorphs book, you're going to see body horror, dark shit, and near death experiences of literal children no matter what, and even a lot of the funny scenes are "haha holy crap we could have died but we didn't"), and I don't have much to say about the book on its own aside from that. Also there's an absolutely horrific scene where she "expels" a crocodile from her body and it's just as terrifying as you think it would be, and the writing is just as detailed as Animorphs tends to be.

My thought on this cycle being "breaking yourself to keep fitting your role" is definitely a reach to fit, so I'm probably just tossing it to the back of my mind. But, my reasoning for fitting this book into that is primarily because of how much of a completely average normal teenage girl Rachel shows herself to really be in this book, and that she spends so much of the book trying to lie and pretend otherwise.

The truth was, I felt nervous and worried and totally unsure of myself. But people expected me to be all gung ho. If I hadn't been, they'd have known something was very wrong with me.

She feels ashamed for feeling "betrayed" when she finds out her celebrity crush is an asshole, and even more ashamed for still finding him attractive despite it. The allergy itself terrifies her, and she tries to hide that as well, not even telling Cassie about it until the problem becomes visible to everyone. When Jake calls her off of the mission for the allergy she feels like a failure, and she literally lies to get back in on the mission to "fix things".

And then, she thinks she can control all of these emotions, when really what she's been doing is trying to suppress them.

This honestly was one of the most depressing things about the book: Rachel acting so much like a "normal teenager" (which she is) and then feeling like she has to suppress that. Animorphs has a way of putting the kids dual lives side by side in a way that shows just how childlike they are even while in the middle of a crisis. One very simple, small thing that I doubt was even intended to elicit a strong reaction was all of this combined with the reminder that Rachel calls her father "daddy". It showcases an age appropriate immaturity in Rachel that just highlights the violence she and the others face in a way that's even more horrifying the older I get.

There's also some talk about "when you grow up, Rachel" in this book that made me want to lay down forever, but that's another thing entirely.

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