A review by magicalghoul
The Encounter by K.A. Applegate

adventurous dark emotional sad tense fast-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

 
 <Yeah. I know. That's how I know that you are wrong, Rachel, at least partly. I am a human, yes. But I am also a hawk. I'm a predator who kills for food. And I'm also a human being who... who grieves, over death.>
She was terribly sad. She's very human, my friend Rachel.

♢ 3/62 OF THE ANIMORPHS REREAD
  ⚠ tws for the entire series: war, death, child soldiers, child death, descriptions of gore, body horror, discussions of parental death, slugs, parasites, loss of free will, depictions of PTSD and trauma, ableism, imperialism. 

Tobias' books are about the search for his identity and personhood, about duality and finding yourself within it, about his role in the group (a theme for all of the animorphs!) and how he stands as a warning for the rest— and also for the reader to know that the stakes are real and will affect our protagonists, in case it wasn't clear from all the death and suffering they've already come across in only two books.

His narration is turned towards interiority and this one being the first, is the peak example of it, I think. It's after all one of those points where Tobias' identity is more fractured (what with Just being trapped in a hawk body and all) to the point of being suicidal, and the narration of his inner conflict is really really gutting— made even more poignant if you're listening to the audiobooks, whose narrator did a great job in carrying across Tobias' emotionality.

Highlights: The depiction of Tobias' relationship with Rachel, the Berensons being such battle axes As Usual, these kids deciding they'd rather die than be taken captive AND WE'RE ONLY ON BOOK 3, the entirety of the mall scene, and Rachel saying "a person isn't his body" and thus supporting the fact that you can 100% read Tobias as trans. TRANS RIGHTS 🏳️‍⚧️
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