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A review by lostcadence
The Invasion by K.A. Applegate
3.0
It Is Time - For an Inevitable Millennial Reread of that series I loved when I was 11.
I loooved Animorphs as a kid - I own every book - and have been enjoying the recent spate of articles by folks revisiting and enjoying the series as adults, especially for its mature content given the whole 'it's supposed to be for kids' thing.
Show up for cool animal transformations and stay for the body horror and war trauma.
In the end, The Invasion was just fine. Given how much exposition it had to get through, it started pretty clunkily. I was also surprised by how awful some of the teen dialogue was (even with 90s slang - it seems to me that an adult wrote what they thought kids sounded like; I hope this improves).
But the book really shines in the back third, when the action begins, the stakes become clear, and the characters interact in more meaningful ways. I expect the series to have some highs and lows, but the Invasion was a relatively okay start. Besides, Jake was never my favourite character.
I also found it interesting how (at least at this point in the series) violence is enacted or described. Horrible injuries delivered to aliens like Hork Baijr and Andalites? No problem, let's talk about death and dismemberment. But are some humans involved? Violence is implied, mitigated, or happens off camera. I'm curious to see how this component of the series evolves. On to Book 2!
I loooved Animorphs as a kid - I own every book - and have been enjoying the recent spate of articles by folks revisiting and enjoying the series as adults, especially for its mature content given the whole 'it's supposed to be for kids' thing.
Show up for cool animal transformations and stay for the body horror and war trauma.
In the end, The Invasion was just fine. Given how much exposition it had to get through, it started pretty clunkily. I was also surprised by how awful some of the teen dialogue was (even with 90s slang - it seems to me that an adult wrote what they thought kids sounded like; I hope this improves).
But the book really shines in the back third, when the action begins, the stakes become clear, and the characters interact in more meaningful ways. I expect the series to have some highs and lows, but the Invasion was a relatively okay start. Besides, Jake was never my favourite character.
I also found it interesting how (at least at this point in the series) violence is enacted or described. Horrible injuries delivered to aliens like Hork Baijr and Andalites? No problem, let's talk about death and dismemberment. But are some humans involved? Violence is implied, mitigated, or happens off camera. I'm curious to see how this component of the series evolves. On to Book 2!