A review by mo3rgan
Animorphs by K.A. Applegate, K.A. Applegate
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.