What do you think?
Rate this book
Animorphs #22
By Katherin Applegate - The Solution
In this final installment of a trilogy that began with "#20: The Discovery" and "#21: The Threat", the Animorphs must save the world leaders and eliminate the threat of David, the Animorph who could destroy everything.
Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 1998
30 people are currently reading
971 people want to read
About the author
K.A. Applegate
251 books468 followersalso published under the name Katherine Applegate
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 275 reviews
June 14, 2020
FIRST REVIEW / APR 2, 2015
I WOULD RATE THIS SIX STARS IF I COULD. The haunting conclusion to the David trilogy, the series taking an even darker turn as they finally contemplate killing another human being, another not-even-teenager like them. It's notable because the series has always been very conscious of showing that they try to minimise damage, even to the extent of sending money to a store later if they steal clothes. They hit Controllers just hard enough to drop them; they leave Hork-Bajir unconscious but breathing; even as a venomous snake, they (somehow) bite just enough to knock a man out but not kill him; Ax hits people with the flat of his tail. The Animorphs try not to kill. I think so far, the one time it was shown that they consciously did so, it was Cassie ripping a Hork-Bajir's throat out, and the psychological repercussions for her were dire.
But now they're finally at the prospect of crossing that line, and they're not even facing a Controller or Yeerk.
I love this book for Rachel's increasing darkness (this girl is honestly frightening sometimes) -- Jake and Rachel finally drop some real talk on each other, comparing her lust for battle to alcoholism, and wondering what she'll do once the war is over and she no longer has this outlet. (She's wise, however, in pointing out that Jake won't be able to just go back to normal life either.) These words are an ominous foreshadowing for what will come later in the series. There's her dawning self-awareness of what she's really like, and her realisation of how Jake has used her like a sharp blade. I've highlighted SOOOO many quotes along those lines, but this one might be the most important one for me, because words are important, and let's call a spade a spade:
They are at their last straw; their Yeerk mission becomes an act of desperation, because the first two attempts at "subtle and cunning and stealthy" utterly failed, so they resort to a Hail Mary effort. Their fight with David is gruelling, and what they eventually have to do is horrifying -- everyone playing their role, even using Cassie's aforementioned empathetic nature in order to manipulate him like moving a marionette -- and the book ends fittingly abruptly, because there's no rest for them after what they've done, no neat conclusion.
---------------------------------
SECOND REVIEW / JUNE 3, 2020
More than anything, I think this book is where Rachel's devolution truly begins. There have been hints of it before, but the horrifying ending of this book is a huge blow to her mental health, and here is when she finally has the dawning revelation of how far she's started to slide, and how and why her own cousin uses her, and the fact that he is right about her:
There's just so, so so much good characterisation stuff here as Rachel wrestles with it, and wonders if she'd always been like this, and sees that everybody else realised her downturn before she did.
I tried to look at myself the way Jake saw me. Was it true? Did I love this war?
THE COUSIN RELATIONSHIPPPPP here just ruins me. Their whole conversation plumbs into their psyches and their trauma, and also plants some foreshadowing for future missions where Jake will use his cousin, again, to do his dirty work. (Also, this is a small detail in the grand scale of things but: the resolution to Saddler's situation is also horrifying.)
Favourite quotes moved to Google Docs.
I WOULD RATE THIS SIX STARS IF I COULD. The haunting conclusion to the David trilogy, the series taking an even darker turn as they finally contemplate killing another human being, another not-even-teenager like them. It's notable because the series has always been very conscious of showing that they try to minimise damage, even to the extent of sending money to a store later if they steal clothes. They hit Controllers just hard enough to drop them; they leave Hork-Bajir unconscious but breathing; even as a venomous snake, they (somehow) bite just enough to knock a man out but not kill him; Ax hits people with the flat of his tail. The Animorphs try not to kill. I think so far, the one time it was shown that they consciously did so, it was Cassie ripping a Hork-Bajir's throat out, and the psychological repercussions for her were dire.
But now they're finally at the prospect of crossing that line, and they're not even facing a Controller or Yeerk.
I love this book for Rachel's increasing darkness (this girl is honestly frightening sometimes) -- Jake and Rachel finally drop some real talk on each other, comparing her lust for battle to alcoholism, and wondering what she'll do once the war is over and she no longer has this outlet. (She's wise, however, in pointing out that Jake won't be able to just go back to normal life either.) These words are an ominous foreshadowing for what will come later in the series. There's her dawning self-awareness of what she's really like, and her realisation of how Jake has used her like a sharp blade. I've highlighted SOOOO many quotes along those lines, but this one might be the most important one for me, because words are important, and let's call a spade a spade:
And I was going to have to go after David. I was going to have to hunt him down.
I was going to hunt him down and destroy him.
No, not destroy. That was a weasel word. It was vague, meaningless. I was going to kill him.
I felt sick inside. It might have been the morphing that was annihilating my internal organs and replacing them with the primitive organs of a housefly.
Or it might have been the feeling that comes from rage and hate.
‹Ax? Tell me something. When Jake sent you to get help, why did you come for me and not Marco or Cassie?›
‹Prince Jake was specific. Get Rachel.›
‹Did he say why?›
Ax hesitated a moment. Then he said, ‹Jake told me Tobias was probably dead. I said this was a terrible thing. And Prince Jake said, "Yes. If David's killed Tobias, we may have to do a terrible thing, too. Get Rachel."›
I don't know how that made me feel. I'm not a person who obsesses over her feelings. You know what I mean? Some people can't stop 'looking inward' constantly, and that's not me.
But it definitely made me feel strange. Jake had called for me specifically. Because he wanted someone who would do precisely what I was planning to do.
They are at their last straw; their Yeerk mission becomes an act of desperation, because the first two attempts at "subtle and cunning and stealthy" utterly failed, so they resort to a Hail Mary effort. Their fight with David is gruelling, and what they eventually have to do is horrifying -- everyone playing their role, even using Cassie's aforementioned empathetic nature in order to manipulate him like moving a marionette -- and the book ends fittingly abruptly, because there's no rest for them after what they've done, no neat conclusion.
---------------------------------
SECOND REVIEW / JUNE 3, 2020
More than anything, I think this book is where Rachel's devolution truly begins. There have been hints of it before, but the horrifying ending of this book is a huge blow to her mental health, and here is when she finally has the dawning revelation of how far she's started to slide, and how and why her own cousin uses her, and the fact that he is right about her:
‹Okay,› Jake said. ‹Cassie morphs first. She's fastest.›
It made sense. Cassie was the best at morphing. Jake was using her for her special talent. Like he used Marco for his suspicious mind. Like he used Ax for his knowledge of all things alien. Like he used Tobias for his raptor eyes and ears.
Like he used me. For what? For my recklessness? For something dark that lived inside me?
There's just so, so so much good characterisation stuff here as Rachel wrestles with it, and wonders if she'd always been like this, and sees that everybody else realised her downturn before she did.
I tried to look at myself the way Jake saw me. Was it true? Did I love this war?
THE COUSIN RELATIONSHIPPPPP here just ruins me. Their whole conversation plumbs into their psyches and their trauma, and also plants some foreshadowing for future missions where Jake will use his cousin, again, to do his dirty work. (Also, this is a small detail in the grand scale of things but: the resolution to Saddler's situation is also horrifying.)
Favourite quotes moved to Google Docs.
December 4, 2015
I’m trying to be sparing with my five stars in this series, but oh man … Rachel. Applegate just always breaks my heart with her, and The Solution is yet another perfect example. In the conclusion to the David trilogy, Rachel is instrumental in implementing the titular “solution” to the Animorphs’ problem. It is ironic that a human enemy, rather than a Yeerk one, forces the Animorphs to be at their coldest yet.
Let’s just catalogue what Rachel has to endure in this book.
Jake tells Ax to “get Rachel” instead of anyone else. This haunts Rachel for the length of the story: why did Jake send Ax for her, specifically, rather than Cassie or Marco? When she confronts him, he claims he needed the firepower of her morphs—but they both recognize this is a thin excuse. In actuality, Rachel has a ruthlessness that the other Animorphs lack. This is not the first time Applegate has drawn our attention to it, but it is the first time Jake, as leader, has taken tactical advantage of it.
Rachel crosses a line. Until now, the most morally dubious action in this series, in my opinion, is what Tobias and Ax conspire to do in In the Time of the Dinosaurs . And that was a much more utilitarian decision than Rachel’s actions here. Having seen the lengths to which David is willing to go, Rachel snaps. She threatens to kill him. She threatens to take down his family. Rachel shows that she is prepared to cross any line to deal with David. It’s scary. And it scares her.
When storming the resort to prevent the Yeerks from making world leaders into Controllers, Rachel encounters the President of the United States. She’s in elephant morph, and she’s not doing too well:
I keep saying this, but I’ll just reiterate: these aren’t kids’ novels any more, if ever they were. Applegate doesn’t pull punches. These fights are visceral—earlier, she talks about Jake in tiger morph lying in a pool of his own blood. Let’s not even mention all the times she has to morph quickly in hostile environments—she nearly drowns here when she’s trying to get into dolphin morph. Rachel is going through experiences that I, as an adult, probably wouldn’t be able to get through.
Finally, Applegate reminds us that Rachel’s relationship with this war is only going to get more troubling. Jake likens it to an alcoholic with booze and expresses regret for his role in enabling Rachel’s warrior passion. Jokes about Xena aside, there’s definitely something to be said for Applegate making the stereotypically blonde-haired, blue-eyed “pretty” and fashion-obsessed Rachel the warlike one.
But what breaks my heart is just the knowledge that this is the beginning of Rachel’s descent into darkness, not the nadir. It gets worse! And I say this not just with the foreknowledge from having read this series long ago but thanks to Applegate’s foreshadowing in this book. Rachel will always have to live with her role in eliminating the threat of David, in condemning him to a face that, in some respects, in much worse than simply killing him. I feel so sorry for the Animorphs that they have to make these decisions, and for Rachel in particular. While her guilt shows that, unlike David, she is not too far-gone, that guilt itself is a burden she should not have to bear.
My reviews of Animorphs:
← #21: The Threat | The Hork-Bajir Chronicles →
Let’s just catalogue what Rachel has to endure in this book.
Jake tells Ax to “get Rachel” instead of anyone else. This haunts Rachel for the length of the story: why did Jake send Ax for her, specifically, rather than Cassie or Marco? When she confronts him, he claims he needed the firepower of her morphs—but they both recognize this is a thin excuse. In actuality, Rachel has a ruthlessness that the other Animorphs lack. This is not the first time Applegate has drawn our attention to it, but it is the first time Jake, as leader, has taken tactical advantage of it.
Rachel crosses a line. Until now, the most morally dubious action in this series, in my opinion, is what Tobias and Ax conspire to do in In the Time of the Dinosaurs . And that was a much more utilitarian decision than Rachel’s actions here. Having seen the lengths to which David is willing to go, Rachel snaps. She threatens to kill him. She threatens to take down his family. Rachel shows that she is prepared to cross any line to deal with David. It’s scary. And it scares her.
When storming the resort to prevent the Yeerks from making world leaders into Controllers, Rachel encounters the President of the United States. She’s in elephant morph, and she’s not doing too well:
I swear I had to fight down the urge to say, “It's an honor to meet you, sir.” But blood was flowing down my face and I was feeling dizzy. The bullets had done some damage.
I keep saying this, but I’ll just reiterate: these aren’t kids’ novels any more, if ever they were. Applegate doesn’t pull punches. These fights are visceral—earlier, she talks about Jake in tiger morph lying in a pool of his own blood. Let’s not even mention all the times she has to morph quickly in hostile environments—she nearly drowns here when she’s trying to get into dolphin morph. Rachel is going through experiences that I, as an adult, probably wouldn’t be able to get through.
Finally, Applegate reminds us that Rachel’s relationship with this war is only going to get more troubling. Jake likens it to an alcoholic with booze and expresses regret for his role in enabling Rachel’s warrior passion. Jokes about Xena aside, there’s definitely something to be said for Applegate making the stereotypically blonde-haired, blue-eyed “pretty” and fashion-obsessed Rachel the warlike one.
But what breaks my heart is just the knowledge that this is the beginning of Rachel’s descent into darkness, not the nadir. It gets worse! And I say this not just with the foreknowledge from having read this series long ago but thanks to Applegate’s foreshadowing in this book. Rachel will always have to live with her role in eliminating the threat of David, in condemning him to a face that, in some respects, in much worse than simply killing him. I feel so sorry for the Animorphs that they have to make these decisions, and for Rachel in particular. While her guilt shows that, unlike David, she is not too far-gone, that guilt itself is a burden she should not have to bear.
My reviews of Animorphs:
← #21: The Threat | The Hork-Bajir Chronicles →
Read
December 1, 2017Look, let's not beat around the bush here. This is some f***ed up sh**. Full review of David Trilogy later.
P.S. Only censoring the swears for the kids because this is OSTENSIBLY (side-eye) a children's book. Most of the time I think censoring swears is pointless. We know what you are typing so just type it already.
P.S. Only censoring the swears for the kids because this is OSTENSIBLY (side-eye) a children's book. Most of the time I think censoring swears is pointless. We know what you are typing so just type it already.
June 19, 2019
So, we finally come full circle. I've talked before about how each of the narrators of the David arc had a special significance: Marco was the first person to see through him, Jake had the biggest burden of handling him, and now Rachel is the only member of the team who's ruthless enough to deal with him in the way he needs to be dealt with. It's right there in the moment when she finally decides that she's going to do whatever it takes:
This is a powerful line, and it almost feels like a larger metafictional commentary on the way a lot of works aimed at younger audiences try to have their cake and eat it too, by capitalizing on more adult concepts but then trying to euphemize away everything that makes said concepts even the least bit meaningful. Who cares if your kids' cartoon regularly shows characters being beaten within an inch of their lives; surely the stupid kiddies won't understand what's going on just as long as you don't show any blood! So what if the lone female member of your cast goes into battle dressed like a literal stripper while all of her male counterparts are wearing full body armor; surely the stupid kiddies won't grasp the implications just so long as you're extra careful never to let slip a single peek of any—*gasp*!—nipples!
The thing is, even though it keeps the censors happy, all of these meaningless, vague euphemisms are a serious insult to the intelligence of your audience. How many times now have I rolled my eyes when a character has declared that "I'm going to destroy him" or "I'll make him pay", or someone has confirmed a character death by announcing "He's gone," because 1) do you seriously expect us not to figure out what's really going on just because you shuffled a few words around?, and 2) if you explicitly don't want your audience to figure it out, then what was the point of including it in the first place? Here, though, Rachel (and, by extension, K. A. Applegate) explicitly addresses it. She's not trying to have her cake and eat it too. She's not trying to weasel her way out of finishing what she started. She's not showing the readers these horrible wartime atrocities and then attempting to protect their delicate psyches with euphemism Band-Aids, and I love her for that.
Regarding characterization notes, one thing that particularly stands out is that Jake was the only member of the team to truly stop and mourn Tobias's "death". By contrast, Rachel and Ax—the two people closest to Tobias—express their regrets but then immediately snap into action. Their laser focus and task-oriented response does fit their characters, as Rachel has always been the most action-oriented of the Animorphs and Ax is the only member of the team who can rightfully be called a soldier, but it's also significant in that they both seem to be consciously pushing themselves to do do do because they can't afford to actually stop and process what they think has happened. That's only reinforced by the fact that they spend a large portion of this book working together, without any hitches or headbutting or cajoling from Jake, and these are two characters who have never gotten along particularly well.
Rachel also has some of the best insights into the victim-blaming mentality that I've ever seen in a work of literature, and she puts it in a way that actually makes sense:
And, yeah, it's easy to understand why Rachel would be getting mad at Saddler for having been critically injured right when her own life is so unstable. "I've spent the past year trying to save the world, I have less than a day to keep a group of important world leaders from having alien brain slugs put into their heads, one of my teammates who turned out to be a sadistic psychopath went rogue and is trying to murder me and my friends, I haven't slept for the past 24 hours, and I have to hide all of this from my family no matter what; you seriously couldn't have picked a better time to get hit by a car?" It's certainly not logical, or charitable, or right, but it is understandable, and the fact that most people feel horrible for having such thoughts doesn't change the fact that many people still can't help but have them. Given that this is a book where Jake's willingness to take advantage of her bloodlust and David's twisted mind games alike have Rachel increasingly wondering whether she's a monster, this was a nice little moment for illustrating her own increasing self-doubt.
Speaking of which, there were some excellent moments between Jake and Rachel as well. Jake knows how to run his team and he's been giving Rachel the sorts of assignments that play to her strengths because they've got a war to win, but he still can't help but worry about how her adrenaline addiction and bloodlust play into that role and what that might be doing to her mental health. At the same time, Rachel knows that he values her as the best fighter and understands why he uses her the way that he does, but she still can't help but resent him because he is still using her.
As for David, while he richly deserved what he got (as Rachel pointed out, what they did to him was no more than he would have done to them had he gotten the chance) and he really hadn't left them with any other options that didn't end in straight-up murder, that doesn't change the fact that their actions are going to leave every last member of this team with severe psychological scars. It's there in the way that Cassie says "May I be forgiven for what I am about to do," it's there in the way that Rachel pushes everyone who doesn't need to be there to leave and let her take that burden on herself because she's one of the most emotionally resilient members of the team, and it's there in the way that Ax turns to her as they're flying back and dully says that he never wants to speak about this again. No matter what happens, none of them are ever going to be the same.
While the series has been getting progressively darker, somehow it feels as if this is the turning point when it went from a kid-friendly adventure romp to a brutal depiction of the horrors of war. We've already seen the ways in which carrying on this fight has altered the various members of the team, but this is the point where it really hits home that there is no going back from this. Even if the war ended tomorrow, not a single one of them would be able to go back to their old lives and just pick up where they left off, and at no previous point in the series has that been clearer.
I was going to hunt him down and destroy him.
No, not destroy. That was a weasel word. It was vague, meaningless. I was going to kill him.
This is a powerful line, and it almost feels like a larger metafictional commentary on the way a lot of works aimed at younger audiences try to have their cake and eat it too, by capitalizing on more adult concepts but then trying to euphemize away everything that makes said concepts even the least bit meaningful. Who cares if your kids' cartoon regularly shows characters being beaten within an inch of their lives; surely the stupid kiddies won't understand what's going on just as long as you don't show any blood! So what if the lone female member of your cast goes into battle dressed like a literal stripper while all of her male counterparts are wearing full body armor; surely the stupid kiddies won't grasp the implications just so long as you're extra careful never to let slip a single peek of any—*gasp*!—nipples!
The thing is, even though it keeps the censors happy, all of these meaningless, vague euphemisms are a serious insult to the intelligence of your audience. How many times now have I rolled my eyes when a character has declared that "I'm going to destroy him" or "I'll make him pay", or someone has confirmed a character death by announcing "He's gone," because 1) do you seriously expect us not to figure out what's really going on just because you shuffled a few words around?, and 2) if you explicitly don't want your audience to figure it out, then what was the point of including it in the first place? Here, though, Rachel (and, by extension, K. A. Applegate) explicitly addresses it. She's not trying to have her cake and eat it too. She's not trying to weasel her way out of finishing what she started. She's not showing the readers these horrible wartime atrocities and then attempting to protect their delicate psyches with euphemism Band-Aids, and I love her for that.
Regarding characterization notes, one thing that particularly stands out is that Jake was the only member of the team to truly stop and mourn Tobias's "death". By contrast, Rachel and Ax—the two people closest to Tobias—express their regrets but then immediately snap into action. Their laser focus and task-oriented response does fit their characters, as Rachel has always been the most action-oriented of the Animorphs and Ax is the only member of the team who can rightfully be called a soldier, but it's also significant in that they both seem to be consciously pushing themselves to do do do because they can't afford to actually stop and process what they think has happened. That's only reinforced by the fact that they spend a large portion of this book working together, without any hitches or headbutting or cajoling from Jake, and these are two characters who have never gotten along particularly well.
Rachel also has some of the best insights into the victim-blaming mentality that I've ever seen in a work of literature, and she puts it in a way that actually makes sense:
"It's not right, but I think it's probably normal," I said. "I mean, you don't want to think it could happen to you. So you have to come up with excuses. Ways it could never happen to you. You end up blaming the person who got hurt. Because then you don't have to think about what if it was you it happened to. You even start getting mad at the person it happened to. Like 'How dare he drag me down into all this pit of darkness? How dare he get hurt and make me feel bad?'"
And, yeah, it's easy to understand why Rachel would be getting mad at Saddler for having been critically injured right when her own life is so unstable. "I've spent the past year trying to save the world, I have less than a day to keep a group of important world leaders from having alien brain slugs put into their heads, one of my teammates who turned out to be a sadistic psychopath went rogue and is trying to murder me and my friends, I haven't slept for the past 24 hours, and I have to hide all of this from my family no matter what; you seriously couldn't have picked a better time to get hit by a car?" It's certainly not logical, or charitable, or right, but it is understandable, and the fact that most people feel horrible for having such thoughts doesn't change the fact that many people still can't help but have them. Given that this is a book where Jake's willingness to take advantage of her bloodlust and David's twisted mind games alike have Rachel increasingly wondering whether she's a monster, this was a nice little moment for illustrating her own increasing self-doubt.
Speaking of which, there were some excellent moments between Jake and Rachel as well. Jake knows how to run his team and he's been giving Rachel the sorts of assignments that play to her strengths because they've got a war to win, but he still can't help but worry about how her adrenaline addiction and bloodlust play into that role and what that might be doing to her mental health. At the same time, Rachel knows that he values her as the best fighter and understands why he uses her the way that he does, but she still can't help but resent him because he is still using her.
As for David, while he richly deserved what he got (as Rachel pointed out, what they did to him was no more than he would have done to them had he gotten the chance) and he really hadn't left them with any other options that didn't end in straight-up murder, that doesn't change the fact that their actions are going to leave every last member of this team with severe psychological scars. It's there in the way that Cassie says "May I be forgiven for what I am about to do," it's there in the way that Rachel pushes everyone who doesn't need to be there to leave and let her take that burden on herself because she's one of the most emotionally resilient members of the team, and it's there in the way that Ax turns to her as they're flying back and dully says that he never wants to speak about this again. No matter what happens, none of them are ever going to be the same.
While the series has been getting progressively darker, somehow it feels as if this is the turning point when it went from a kid-friendly adventure romp to a brutal depiction of the horrors of war. We've already seen the ways in which carrying on this fight has altered the various members of the team, but this is the point where it really hits home that there is no going back from this. Even if the war ended tomorrow, not a single one of them would be able to go back to their old lives and just pick up where they left off, and at no previous point in the series has that been clearer.
April 3, 2022
Y’all…when I tell you my heart dropped to my stomach.
No spoilers but that boy is a son to me and I would take on a million Yeerks for him how DARE David try and do wtf he did !!!
Rachel did what needed to be done 💅
Do I support Rachel losing herself to the identity she’s adopted by being a participant in this war and losing her humanity in a way drastically different from how they do regularly in animal form? Absolutely not. She’s lost her childhood innocence and joy and is becoming bloodthirsty and ruthless to a degree that’s increasingly concerning.
Do I, however, support vengeance??? YUPPPPP!!!
On a more serious note though, there’s a fascinating shift happening with Jake and Rachel’s relationship. Rachel is succumbing to her more violent and (at times) killer tendencies and the moment she realizes that Jake is fully aware of that, she resents him for it. She has a growing hatred for Jake for using her as a weapon and she hates him even more for knowing, on some level, that she enjoys it. She desperately wants the other Animorphs to tell her that she’s still the gentle and kind Rachel she once was- to assure her that this change into a darker version of herself is just all in her head, but time and time again we watch her express a very private outrage over her closest friends staying silent on that front.
She’s terrified of herself and she’s terrified of how little she desires to go back to how things once were.
“You have to put up a wall between you and the fear. You have to cut yourself off from it, tell yourself you're safe. Bad stuff only happens to people who are careless or stupid or evil.”
When Jake tells Rachel that she loves this war, she can’t find it in herself to deny the claim.
With a newly warped worldview, Rachel feels that she’s found her life’s purpose as a soldier in this war but what is to become of her when the war is over?
CW: war, slavery, violence, death, grief
No spoilers but that boy is a son to me and I would take on a million Yeerks for him how DARE David try and do wtf he did !!!
Rachel did what needed to be done 💅
Do I support Rachel losing herself to the identity she’s adopted by being a participant in this war and losing her humanity in a way drastically different from how they do regularly in animal form? Absolutely not. She’s lost her childhood innocence and joy and is becoming bloodthirsty and ruthless to a degree that’s increasingly concerning.
Do I, however, support vengeance??? YUPPPPP!!!
On a more serious note though, there’s a fascinating shift happening with Jake and Rachel’s relationship. Rachel is succumbing to her more violent and (at times) killer tendencies and the moment she realizes that Jake is fully aware of that, she resents him for it. She has a growing hatred for Jake for using her as a weapon and she hates him even more for knowing, on some level, that she enjoys it. She desperately wants the other Animorphs to tell her that she’s still the gentle and kind Rachel she once was- to assure her that this change into a darker version of herself is just all in her head, but time and time again we watch her express a very private outrage over her closest friends staying silent on that front.
She’s terrified of herself and she’s terrified of how little she desires to go back to how things once were.
“You have to put up a wall between you and the fear. You have to cut yourself off from it, tell yourself you're safe. Bad stuff only happens to people who are careless or stupid or evil.”
When Jake tells Rachel that she loves this war, she can’t find it in herself to deny the claim.
With a newly warped worldview, Rachel feels that she’s found her life’s purpose as a soldier in this war but what is to become of her when the war is over?
CW: war, slavery, violence, death, grief
August 6, 2014
Oh my God, Rachel.
She's the only one who could have done it. . . .
And she did. . . .
But who is she now, huh?
This third volume in the STUNNING "David" trilogy, where the Animorphs have to catch and punish their traitor, is very disturbing. Because the good guys do some very horrible things out of necessity.
I wonder if this stuff ever gave children nightmares? I read it when I was in my twenties. . . .
Notable moments and inconsistencies:
Rachel says that the lumpy, rocky island makes her nervous for some reason, and this is foreshadowing considering what later happens on that island. Cassie is usually the one who sort-of foresees significance before it can be known, but here Rachel is doing it.
It's not said what happened to the real Saddler's body. It seems odd that David could get rid of it as easily as he did.
At the end of the book Rachel's narration says "We never heard from David again," with a qualifier about how some people heard ghostlike thought-speak coming from where David was stranded. But if you look at a much later book, that most certainly shows that this was NOT the last they heard of David.
She's the only one who could have done it. . . .
And she did. . . .
But who is she now, huh?
This third volume in the STUNNING "David" trilogy, where the Animorphs have to catch and punish their traitor, is very disturbing. Because the good guys do some very horrible things out of necessity.
I wonder if this stuff ever gave children nightmares? I read it when I was in my twenties. . . .
Notable moments and inconsistencies:
Rachel says that the lumpy, rocky island makes her nervous for some reason, and this is foreshadowing considering what later happens on that island. Cassie is usually the one who sort-of foresees significance before it can be known, but here Rachel is doing it.
It's not said what happened to the real Saddler's body. It seems odd that David could get rid of it as easily as he did.
At the end of the book Rachel's narration says "We never heard from David again," with a qualifier about how some people heard ghostlike thought-speak coming from where David was stranded. But if you look at a much later book, that most certainly shows that this was NOT the last they heard of David.
March 9, 2024
Okay she’s giving complex emotions, depth of character, and tough choices. Rachel let’s be real, you’re the most likely to kill someone. Jake let’s also be real, you know that and wanted Rachel to do it. But you both owned up to these facts and I loved that. And like I get these are kids books and the moral is to feel bad about doing an awful thing against someone even if they’re acting like a villain, but David got what he deserved and I wouldn’t feel bad for an instant being in their shoes.
#StillReadingBecauseTobiasIsAlive
#StillReadingBecauseTobiasIsAlive
July 25, 2022
This is a very dark and strong conclusion to the David trilogy and shows the Animorphs are at least considering crossing the line they’ve so far drawn for themselves in this war.
March 30, 2021
Wow... Rereading this 2 decades later, and it still holds up. Because it doesn't matter if this was set in the '90s, or that it has aliens with laser guns, or even meme ready covers.
It comes down to the characters as its greatest strength, and it always has with this series. The fans know this, and this book is no exception. The way these kids struggle with finding their own 'line' of morality, while facing all the horrors of war, is what makes the series unlike any other. There are sci-fi books out there for adults that aren't this great.
The David Trilogy (20-22) is peak Animorphs (along with 19, 26, and so many others) and I'd consider this essential reading, whether you're going through the series for the first, second, or fiftieth time. It's a must.
It comes down to the characters as its greatest strength, and it always has with this series. The fans know this, and this book is no exception. The way these kids struggle with finding their own 'line' of morality, while facing all the horrors of war, is what makes the series unlike any other. There are sci-fi books out there for adults that aren't this great.
The David Trilogy (20-22) is peak Animorphs (along with 19, 26, and so many others) and I'd consider this essential reading, whether you're going through the series for the first, second, or fiftieth time. It's a must.
January 22, 2022
Come check out my 4 hour 35 minute deep dive into reading every single Animorphs book for the first time on YouTube. I recap and review all of the books from the main series: https://youtu.be/H8kUM2q3CIU
June 5, 2014
One of the best and most memorable books in the whole series. Can't believe these are just kids books. The themes of morality in this are so beyond what you usually see for this reading level. And you will never, ever see another character like Rachel in kids/young adult fiction again. She is absolutely stunning.
October 13, 2022
October 7, 2022 audiobook read here.
January 15, 2021 reread:
The Animorphs have a problem. Well, more than the one about the world leaders gathering and the Yeerk plan to infest more of them, but this one is something beyond what they normally deal with. The problem’s name is David. See, it’s not that he just doesn’t fit with the group: he is actively out to betray them and destroy them one by one until he gets what he wants. And with all the power of morphing at his disposal – to spy, to interfere, and worse – it won’t be easy to get him. But if the Animorphs want to keep fighting the Yeerks, they’ll have to trick and trap David.
To start on a “light” note: picturing four elephants and two rhinoceroses causing havoc on hotel grounds is a most amusing image, and just crazy enough to be as effective as the Animorphs could hope for.
Now for some seriousness: there is so much double-dealing in this book as the Animorphs actively try to out-maneuver David, it feels far more young adult (at least) than middle grade. It’s complex, and the level of maturity that the Animorphs exhibit goes to show just how much they are no longer kids anymore, how much this guerrilla war has changed them. How each one plays a very specific role in the plan to resolve the David problem, and that role is dictated by the attributes they’ve become known for and evolved over the course of the war thus far. Beyond that, there’s also the frank conversation between Jake and Rachel which is especially of note, about who this war has made them, and what they will do once it is over. It really shows just how much this war has changed them, how it’s made them grow up and mature so much more than they should be at this point in their lives. I love how it’s not dumbed down or over-simplified for the middle-grade audience either: it speaks to them with honest clarity, and gives them a solid amount of credit for understanding what it all means.
It’s also amazing not only just how quickly David got the endurance to accomplish rapid morphing, but how he was able to obtain some of his new morphs all on his own, morphs that wouldn’t necessarily have been easy to get. If Visser Three showed half as much critical thinking and planning as David, the Animorphs would have been doomed long ago. But because it is David, the Animorphs have advantages over him they wouldn’t have over Visser Three.
Quotes and commentary:
I had to get Ax. No! That’s what David wanted.
No, I had to get Marco. The real Marco, who was probably unconscious inside the house.
No, wait, that wasn’t right, either.
And then the golden eagle came flapping out of the window. Another of David’s morphs.
It was one-on-one. Him and me. – page 32 – Spoiler for commentary regarding towards the end of series under the cut:
No one said a thing [to David’s true accusation]. No one came to my defense.
I felt hollow all of a sudden. […] Who were they to be judging me? Which of them hadn’t done things they were ashamed of?
Was I ashamed? Was that what I was saying? – page 87 – For how much Rachel says she’s not big on thinking deeply about things, it doesn’t mean the thoughts don’t at least cross her mind before she forcefully dismisses them. It’s how she deals with things.
“I mean, you don’t want to think [something bad like what happened to Saddler] could happen to you. So you have to come up with excuses. Ways it could never happen to you. You end up blaming the person who got hurt. Because then you don’t have to think about what if it was you it happened to. You even start getting mad at the person it happened to. Like ‘how dare he drag me down into all this pit of darkness? How dare he get hurt and make me feel bad?’” – page 93 – I wonder if Rachel realized just how much she was talking about David and her in all of this?
If Visser Three thought for certain that he could catch the “Andalite Bandit,” as he thought of us, he wouldn’t let the public get in his way. […] He could machine-gun the place using human-Controllers.
That would have made the news, but no one would have thought it was all that strange. I guess that says something about the condition of the human race, with or without aliens. – page 126 – This is still (and possibly even more so) alarmingly true, even today. As a society, we barely bat an eye when we hear about mass shootings on the news.
Typos/inconsistencies:
I made it to human morph […] – page 67 – human form, not morph, as it’s her own body.
I also underlined a few quotes I re-marked in this re-read from my original 2015 review quotes below.
Original Review: August 10, 2015
The final part of the David trilogy, and it all comes to a head. Rachel narrates, and even if it wasn’t just ‘her turn’ to narrate, she would still be the best one of the Animorphs to narrate what must be done, and what the Animorphs get done, in this book. It is through Rachel that we truly see the darkness that the Animorphs deal with every day, in different ways. It is through Rachel that we realize how irreparably changed each and every one of the Animorphs is due to the fight against the Yeerks, and how there will be no going back to “before” after all that they have been through.
This book is possibly one of the most introspective so far, with the most numerous deep conversations and self-analyses. And it is dark. It is gritty. It is real.
Each of the Animorphs have each grown and changed due to this conflict, found things out about themselves that might never have seen the light of day – or the darkest of night – if not for having to battle the Yeerks. They are child soldiers. And their lives will most definitely never be the same, especially after what they must do in this book.
I think … I think I will never want to speak of this again.
And some quotes and comments – though so many of these quotes stand solidly on their own, and can’t really be commented on:
[Rachel’s dreaming about morphing into an elephant in a store]
I looked down, and there, beneath one massive fold of elephant belly, was a small figure in an orange hooded sweatshirt.
“Oh, my God! She killed Kenny!” someone cried. – page 2 – Wow no way I would have gotten this South Park reference at 10 years old. That was definitely a show I was NOT allowed to watch. Sometimes I really do wonder about what the Animorphs are allowed to watch as what, 12-13 year olds? Maybe?
Tobias? Dead?
If David had hurt Tobias, I would…
But what was the point in making threats? I didn’t need to make threats. I knew what I would do. So did Jake. That’s why he’d sent Ax for me. – page 5 – That is the cold, hard, dirty truth of it, too.
But none of these things meant anything to me. Tobias was dead. Jake might still die. And I was going to have to go after David. I was going to have to hunt him down.
I was going to hunt him down and destroy him.
No, not destroy. That was a weasel word. It was vague, meaningless. I was going to kill him.
I felt sick inside. It might have been the morphing that was annihilating my internal organs and replacing them with the primitive organs of a housefly.
Or it might have been the feeling that comes from rage and hate.
< Ax? Tell me something. When Jake sent you to get help, why did you come for me and not Marco or Cassie? >
< Prince Jake was specific. Get Rachel. >
< Did he say why? >
Ax hesitated a moment. Then he said, < Jake told me Tobias was probably dead. I said this was a terrible thing. And Prince Jake said, “Yes. If David’s killed Tobias, we may have to do a terrible thing, too. Get Rachel.” >
I don’t know how that made me feel. I’m not a person who obsesses over her feelings. You know what I mean? Some people can’t stop “looking inward” constantly, and that’s not me.
But it definitely made me feel strange. Jake had called for me specifically. Because he wanted someone who would do precisely what I was planning to do.
Like I say, I’m not big on feelings, but something about that felt wrong.
And yet, as I completed the morph to fly, I knew Jake had picked the right person. See, I cared for Tobias. I don’t think I even knew how much I cared till right then.
But if David had killed him, I would have revenge. I would make Tobias’s murderer pay. – page 20-21—I don’t know what I can say here, other than that this is probably some of the most introspective and understanding statements we have gotten out of this whole series to date. Almost definitely the most out of Rachel to date. This is a significant turning point in her character alone, and sets us up for her decisions later in the book.
Just us, against a person who could become any living animal he could touch. A person who could be any living, breathing thing. A flea in your hair, a cat in a tree, a bat in the night, and, when you were unprepared, when you were vulnerable, a lion or tiger or bear.
I was starting to realize why Visser Three hated us so much. – page 26-27
[Rachel is confronting David.]
“You want a war between you and us, that’s one thing. We’ll play that out,” I said. “But you try and sell us out to Visser Three, and your little family will never get put back together again. Never!”
This time I was the one to turn and walk away.
[…]
I was exhausted, yes. But it was more than that. I was high on adrenaline. High on the rush of power and violence.
What had I just done? In all the time we’d been fighting the Yeerks, I’d never made a threat like that. What was the matter with me?
I felt…not exactly ashamed. But I knew I never wanted to talk to Cassie about what I’d just told David. Or Tobias. Or even Marco.
And as for Jake, I found myself filled with a terrifying surge of pure, utter hatred for him. I couldn’t begin to explain it. But I swear at that moment I hated Jake far more than I did David.
I should have gone back to the cafeteria. I should have told them all what had happened. But Jake already knew, didn’t he? Jake, the smart, determined leader, already knew all about me.
And I couldn’t face him. I couldn’t face what he knew about me. – page 46-47
I kept wondering: Had I always been like this? Back before the Animorphs, back before that encounter with a dying alien who changed our lives, who had I been?
I tried to remember, but it wasn’t like I was thinking about myself. It was like I was remembering some girl I used to know. Like she was an acquaintance I’d forgotten about until someone reminded me. It was like, “Oh, yeah, Rachel. I remember her.”
[…]
What made me feel stupid was that I hadn’t realized I was changing. But everyone else obviously did. Jake did. When he knew it was coming down to kill-or-be-killed with David, he’d sent Ax to get me. Not Marco. Not Cassie. “Get Rachel.” – page 49-50
[David has acquired Marco and used him as a morph to talk to the other Animorphs in the cafeteria]
“Marco,” I said once I had demorphed. “You know you’re a toad?”
”Kiss me and I’ll become a prince,” he said without hesitation. “I’ll be the Prince Formerly Known As Toad. You know you want me. You can’t help it. After all, you’re a female and I’m…well, I’m me. […] Now can you all stop playing that game? I’m afraid I’ll miss a punch line and Rachel will morph to grizzly and eat me before I have a chance to say anything.” – page 52-53 – Double-edged statement here, and it can reinforce to Rachel that Jake isn’t the only one who recognizes the darkness in her that fuels her “Let’s do it” attitude as well as Jake’s previous command when things were tough (to put it mildly), “Get Rachel”.
< Okay, > Jake said. < Cassie morphs first. She’s fastest. >
It made sense. Cassie was the best at morphing. Jake was using her for her special talent. Like he used Marco for his suspicious mind. Like he used Ax for his knowledge of all things alien. Like he used Tobias for his raptor eyes and ears.
Like he used me. For what? For my recklessness? For something dark that lived inside me? – page 60 – A good leader knows how to use the strengths and weaknesses of his team and of his enemies to his team’s advantage. Even a reluctant leader can become a good leader, given the right circumstances. Though that doesn’t mean that being a “good leader” can’t have a negative effect on the leader and the people he commands.
Moved the rest of the quotes down to comments under a spoiler cut!
January 15, 2021 reread:
The Animorphs have a problem. Well, more than the one about the world leaders gathering and the Yeerk plan to infest more of them, but this one is something beyond what they normally deal with. The problem’s name is David. See, it’s not that he just doesn’t fit with the group: he is actively out to betray them and destroy them one by one until he gets what he wants. And with all the power of morphing at his disposal – to spy, to interfere, and worse – it won’t be easy to get him. But if the Animorphs want to keep fighting the Yeerks, they’ll have to trick and trap David.
To start on a “light” note: picturing four elephants and two rhinoceroses causing havoc on hotel grounds is a most amusing image, and just crazy enough to be as effective as the Animorphs could hope for.
Now for some seriousness: there is so much double-dealing in this book as the Animorphs actively try to out-maneuver David, it feels far more young adult (at least) than middle grade. It’s complex, and the level of maturity that the Animorphs exhibit goes to show just how much they are no longer kids anymore, how much this guerrilla war has changed them. How each one plays a very specific role in the plan to resolve the David problem, and that role is dictated by the attributes they’ve become known for and evolved over the course of the war thus far. Beyond that, there’s also the frank conversation between Jake and Rachel which is especially of note, about who this war has made them, and what they will do once it is over. It really shows just how much this war has changed them, how it’s made them grow up and mature so much more than they should be at this point in their lives. I love how it’s not dumbed down or over-simplified for the middle-grade audience either: it speaks to them with honest clarity, and gives them a solid amount of credit for understanding what it all means.
It’s also amazing not only just how quickly David got the endurance to accomplish rapid morphing, but how he was able to obtain some of his new morphs all on his own, morphs that wouldn’t necessarily have been easy to get. If Visser Three showed half as much critical thinking and planning as David, the Animorphs would have been doomed long ago. But because it is David, the Animorphs have advantages over him they wouldn’t have over Visser Three.
Quotes and commentary:
I had to get Ax. No! That’s what David wanted.
No, I had to get Marco. The real Marco, who was probably unconscious inside the house.
No, wait, that wasn’t right, either.
And then the golden eagle came flapping out of the window. Another of David’s morphs.
It was one-on-one. Him and me. – page 32 – Spoiler for commentary regarding towards the end of series under the cut:
No one said a thing [to David’s true accusation]. No one came to my defense.
I felt hollow all of a sudden. […] Who were they to be judging me? Which of them hadn’t done things they were ashamed of?
Was I ashamed? Was that what I was saying? – page 87 – For how much Rachel says she’s not big on thinking deeply about things, it doesn’t mean the thoughts don’t at least cross her mind before she forcefully dismisses them. It’s how she deals with things.
“I mean, you don’t want to think [something bad like what happened to Saddler] could happen to you. So you have to come up with excuses. Ways it could never happen to you. You end up blaming the person who got hurt. Because then you don’t have to think about what if it was you it happened to. You even start getting mad at the person it happened to. Like ‘how dare he drag me down into all this pit of darkness? How dare he get hurt and make me feel bad?’” – page 93 – I wonder if Rachel realized just how much she was talking about David and her in all of this?
If Visser Three thought for certain that he could catch the “Andalite Bandit,” as he thought of us, he wouldn’t let the public get in his way. […] He could machine-gun the place using human-Controllers.
That would have made the news, but no one would have thought it was all that strange. I guess that says something about the condition of the human race, with or without aliens. – page 126 – This is still (and possibly even more so) alarmingly true, even today. As a society, we barely bat an eye when we hear about mass shootings on the news.
Typos/inconsistencies:
I made it to human morph […] – page 67 – human form, not morph, as it’s her own body.
I also underlined a few quotes I re-marked in this re-read from my original 2015 review quotes below.
Original Review: August 10, 2015
The final part of the David trilogy, and it all comes to a head. Rachel narrates, and even if it wasn’t just ‘her turn’ to narrate, she would still be the best one of the Animorphs to narrate what must be done, and what the Animorphs get done, in this book. It is through Rachel that we truly see the darkness that the Animorphs deal with every day, in different ways. It is through Rachel that we realize how irreparably changed each and every one of the Animorphs is due to the fight against the Yeerks, and how there will be no going back to “before” after all that they have been through.
This book is possibly one of the most introspective so far, with the most numerous deep conversations and self-analyses. And it is dark. It is gritty. It is real.
Each of the Animorphs have each grown and changed due to this conflict, found things out about themselves that might never have seen the light of day – or the darkest of night – if not for having to battle the Yeerks. They are child soldiers. And their lives will most definitely never be the same, especially after what they must do in this book.
I think … I think I will never want to speak of this again.
And some quotes and comments – though so many of these quotes stand solidly on their own, and can’t really be commented on:
[Rachel’s dreaming about morphing into an elephant in a store]
I looked down, and there, beneath one massive fold of elephant belly, was a small figure in an orange hooded sweatshirt.
“Oh, my God! She killed Kenny!” someone cried. – page 2 – Wow no way I would have gotten this South Park reference at 10 years old. That was definitely a show I was NOT allowed to watch. Sometimes I really do wonder about what the Animorphs are allowed to watch as what, 12-13 year olds? Maybe?
Tobias? Dead?
If David had hurt Tobias, I would…
But what was the point in making threats? I didn’t need to make threats. I knew what I would do. So did Jake. That’s why he’d sent Ax for me. – page 5 – That is the cold, hard, dirty truth of it, too.
But none of these things meant anything to me. Tobias was dead. Jake might still die. And I was going to have to go after David. I was going to have to hunt him down.
I was going to hunt him down and destroy him.
No, not destroy. That was a weasel word. It was vague, meaningless. I was going to kill him.
I felt sick inside. It might have been the morphing that was annihilating my internal organs and replacing them with the primitive organs of a housefly.
Or it might have been the feeling that comes from rage and hate.
< Ax? Tell me something. When Jake sent you to get help, why did you come for me and not Marco or Cassie? >
< Prince Jake was specific. Get Rachel. >
< Did he say why? >
Ax hesitated a moment. Then he said, < Jake told me Tobias was probably dead. I said this was a terrible thing. And Prince Jake said, “Yes. If David’s killed Tobias, we may have to do a terrible thing, too. Get Rachel.” >
I don’t know how that made me feel. I’m not a person who obsesses over her feelings. You know what I mean? Some people can’t stop “looking inward” constantly, and that’s not me.
But it definitely made me feel strange. Jake had called for me specifically. Because he wanted someone who would do precisely what I was planning to do.
Like I say, I’m not big on feelings, but something about that felt wrong.
And yet, as I completed the morph to fly, I knew Jake had picked the right person. See, I cared for Tobias. I don’t think I even knew how much I cared till right then.
But if David had killed him, I would have revenge. I would make Tobias’s murderer pay. – page 20-21—I don’t know what I can say here, other than that this is probably some of the most introspective and understanding statements we have gotten out of this whole series to date. Almost definitely the most out of Rachel to date. This is a significant turning point in her character alone, and sets us up for her decisions later in the book.
Just us, against a person who could become any living animal he could touch. A person who could be any living, breathing thing. A flea in your hair, a cat in a tree, a bat in the night, and, when you were unprepared, when you were vulnerable, a lion or tiger or bear.
I was starting to realize why Visser Three hated us so much. – page 26-27
[Rachel is confronting David.]
“You want a war between you and us, that’s one thing. We’ll play that out,” I said. “But you try and sell us out to Visser Three, and your little family will never get put back together again. Never!”
This time I was the one to turn and walk away.
[…]
I was exhausted, yes. But it was more than that. I was high on adrenaline. High on the rush of power and violence.
What had I just done? In all the time we’d been fighting the Yeerks, I’d never made a threat like that. What was the matter with me?
I felt…not exactly ashamed. But I knew I never wanted to talk to Cassie about what I’d just told David. Or Tobias. Or even Marco.
And as for Jake, I found myself filled with a terrifying surge of pure, utter hatred for him. I couldn’t begin to explain it. But I swear at that moment I hated Jake far more than I did David.
I should have gone back to the cafeteria. I should have told them all what had happened. But Jake already knew, didn’t he? Jake, the smart, determined leader, already knew all about me.
And I couldn’t face him. I couldn’t face what he knew about me. – page 46-47
I kept wondering: Had I always been like this? Back before the Animorphs, back before that encounter with a dying alien who changed our lives, who had I been?
I tried to remember, but it wasn’t like I was thinking about myself. It was like I was remembering some girl I used to know. Like she was an acquaintance I’d forgotten about until someone reminded me. It was like, “Oh, yeah, Rachel. I remember her.”
[…]
What made me feel stupid was that I hadn’t realized I was changing. But everyone else obviously did. Jake did. When he knew it was coming down to kill-or-be-killed with David, he’d sent Ax to get me. Not Marco. Not Cassie. “Get Rachel.” – page 49-50
[David has acquired Marco and used him as a morph to talk to the other Animorphs in the cafeteria]
“Marco,” I said once I had demorphed. “You know you’re a toad?”
”Kiss me and I’ll become a prince,” he said without hesitation. “I’ll be the Prince Formerly Known As Toad. You know you want me. You can’t help it. After all, you’re a female and I’m…well, I’m me. […] Now can you all stop playing that game? I’m afraid I’ll miss a punch line and Rachel will morph to grizzly and eat me before I have a chance to say anything.” – page 52-53 – Double-edged statement here, and it can reinforce to Rachel that Jake isn’t the only one who recognizes the darkness in her that fuels her “Let’s do it” attitude as well as Jake’s previous command when things were tough (to put it mildly), “Get Rachel”.
< Okay, > Jake said. < Cassie morphs first. She’s fastest. >
It made sense. Cassie was the best at morphing. Jake was using her for her special talent. Like he used Marco for his suspicious mind. Like he used Ax for his knowledge of all things alien. Like he used Tobias for his raptor eyes and ears.
Like he used me. For what? For my recklessness? For something dark that lived inside me? – page 60 – A good leader knows how to use the strengths and weaknesses of his team and of his enemies to his team’s advantage. Even a reluctant leader can become a good leader, given the right circumstances. Though that doesn’t mean that being a “good leader” can’t have a negative effect on the leader and the people he commands.
Moved the rest of the quotes down to comments under a spoiler cut!
June 4, 2024
I HAVE BEEN HAUNTED BY THIS BOOK FOR THE LAST 25 YEARS
https://www.frowl.org/worstbestseller...
https://www.frowl.org/worstbestseller...
June 22, 2024
*** 4.25 ***
Rachel ends David's arc... In a satisfying fashion 😀😃👍
Rachel ends David's arc... In a satisfying fashion 😀😃👍
April 8, 2017
OMG ALL THE STARS!!!! Wow... so this book man... this book is chilling.
Cassie comes up with the plan to trap David, Rachel is going to kill him and Jake is useing people left and right.
Rachel is scareing herself with her lust for battle, and her rage. Jake sees it and worries about it, but he is willing to use it when needed.
Rachel sees he is useing everyone, but knows when to protect them, as she says at the end.
Gosh, that ending... his screams echoing in her head, the school mate hearing screams when he goes close to the island... damn, I really can't say it is a kids story anymore.
I want to do fan fiction and make the kids adults, but damn I can't top the orgional.
KA Applegate, you are the master.
Cassie comes up with the plan to trap David, Rachel is going to kill him and Jake is useing people left and right.
Rachel is scareing herself with her lust for battle, and her rage. Jake sees it and worries about it, but he is willing to use it when needed.
Rachel sees he is useing everyone, but knows when to protect them, as she says at the end.
Gosh, that ending... his screams echoing in her head, the school mate hearing screams when he goes close to the island... damn, I really can't say it is a kids story anymore.
I want to do fan fiction and make the kids adults, but damn I can't top the orgional.
KA Applegate, you are the master.
January 24, 2023
Little to no incest or beastiality but still the most fucked up animorphs so far 10/10
March 7, 2018
(Originally reviewed at thelibraryladies.com.)
Narrator: Rachel
Plot: Part two was where things got real. Part three is where things get dark. Real dark. And I retreat to a hole of my own making and cry forever. Ax shows up in the middle of the night, waking up Rachel with messages of doom. David has truly gone off the deep end, Tobias is likely dead, and Jake is MIA after sending Ax to get her. They are able to figure out that David and Jake are at the mall and rush there only to find tiger!Jake unconscious and bleeding on the floor. Knowing David must be lurking nearby, Rachel takes charge and has Ax demorph to look around. Lion!David attacks her, but with some fancy gymnastic skills, Rachel is able to avoid him. In the process, David shares, again, his gross little philosophy about not murdering humans only “animals.”
The police show up and David takes off. Cassie’s parents show up as the local animal experts. Cassie’s mom, in particular, is confused since she recognizes the tiger as one from the zoo (Jake’s tiger morph original). Cassie shows up too and they are all concerned about not only Jake’s recovering but about needing him to wake up to demorph before the two hour limit. With Jake in Cassie’s (and her parents’) hands, Ax and Rachel fly to Marco’s to gather the troops, essentially. On the way there, Rachel thinks about how challenging this is all going to be, and even empathizes a bit with the frustration that Visser Three must feel: with the morphing ability, David could be anything and anywhere.
They arrive at Marco’s to find him sleeping in his bed, but as they fly in, Marco smashes Ax with a bat. It’s David in morph. He quickly demorphs and remorphs a golden eagle and chases owl!Rachel. Behind her, she is relieved to see Ax demorphing.
As David chases Rachel, he begins taunting her about killing Tobias. Up to this point, Rachel had been in a state of confusion, but with his words, she goes cold and knows what she has to do. She takes advantage of her better knowledge of her owl morph and manages to just stay ahead of David, leading him towards some power lines that he won’t be able to see with his daytime bird eyes. But just as she nears it, David manages to attack her. Just in the nick of time, David is attacked by a red tailed hawk. Tobias to the rescue! Not liking the odds anymore, David runs off. (How does David not put two and two together with this? Throughout this book, the fact that Tobias is still alive is a huge secret. Maybe David didn’t pay much attention to what kind of bird attacked him here).
Later, the group are back together. Cassie managed to jab tiger!Jake with a syringe and wake him up so that he could demorph and walk out of the vet’s office (Cassie’s mom was super freaked by the whole thing, discovering later that the tiger was somehow magically back in its cage at the Gardens and free of any injury). Marco had woken up to find David standing over him with a bat and had been tied up in a closet
They go to school, all exhausted and scared. Marco!David shows up and Cassie rushes to get the real Marco to hide. He sits with them and is his usual blowhard self, going on and on about how they should just give up now as he has their same abilities and is oh, so much smarter than them all.He wants them to hand over the blue box to. They refuse and David gets up to go, issuing more threats. Rachel follows, cafeteria fork in hand. Outside, she catches up with Marco!David and warns him that if he tries to rat them out to the Yeerks that they’ll know. David doesn’t know about the Chee, so Rachel is able to convince him that the Animorphs have a source within the Yeerk organization since how else would they have known about the world summit meeting. She goes further to say that if he did rat on them, they’d still have time to retaliate and would go after his parents.
“You know, maybe you forget this sometimes, but you are a girl, Rachel.”
“And you’re a worm,” I shot back. “Want to see who wins that fight?”
He swings at her and she neatly avoids it and jams the fork in his ear, getting her point across. After he leaves, Rachel is shocked by her own actions, especially her threat against his parents. Further, she finds herself becoming more and more angry at Jake. For sending for her in the first place, and all the implications that come with that. And the fact that he let her go after David here too, knowing what she would do, but also making her feel judged for being the one to do it.
What made me feel stupid was that I hadn’t realized I was changing. But everyone else obviously did. Jake did. When he knew it was coming down to kill-or-be-killed with David, he’d sent Ax to get me. Not Marco. Not Cassie. “Get Rachel.”
After school, the group meets back at the barn. After grilling Marco to make sure it’s really him, the group begin planning what to do about the world summit, since they still need to deal with that. Ax privately thought speaks Rachel telling her that they are putting on a show, assuming David is in the barn listening. After they all morph birds, they discuss the real plan. Rachel compares the new plan to a game of chess where you know you’re going to lose so instead you simply throw the board across the room.
They go to the Gardens to get morphs and then head to the ocean. There’s a huge storm rolling in, so the transition from bird to dolphin in the middle of the ocean is a difficult one. Cassie’s skill with morphing helps them all make the change safely. They swim to the beach outside the resort and then put their plan in motion: morphing big animals. Rachel, Cassie, Tobias, and Ax go elephant. Jake and Marco go rhino. The security at the resort was pretty unprepared for a bunch of huge animals to barge out of the ocean, so the plan to wreak havoc is pulled off well. Once the big guns show up, including Visser Three, the group retreat back to the ocean. Ultimately, the storm plays in their favor, hiding them and preventing the boats from getting in close.
But as they swim away, killer whale!David shows up (a question mark here: it seems fairly unlikely that David would have been able to anticipate all of this and have a killer whale morph on hand. He also wouldn’t know what ocean animal morphs the Animrophs would use. They could have all had killer whales themselves.) David, again, starts taunting them and tells the group about Rachel’s threat to his parents. The others are silent, infuriating Rachel, especially with Jake whom she thinks is a hypocrite for letting her go after David and then seemingly judging those same actions later.
David goes after Ax, but Rachel calls attention to herself and gets him to switch to her. Just in time, Cassie shows up in humpback whale morph (she manages to slip away during all of the taunting) and scares David off.
When Rachel gets home, she hears that her cousin Saddler is likely going to die. Rachel comforts her younger sister, Jordan. Back in her room, she hears David, talking to her in morph, hidden somewhere in her room, demanding the blue box again. Rachel asks what he’s going to do with it, make new Animorphs who can do to him what he’s doing to them? He’s silenced, but she doesn’t know if he’s left or not. She avoids the shower.
With her family, she heads to Jake’s house where they’re meeting to travel together to the hospital to see Saddler. Rachel tells Jake about David’s invasion of her room and that it’s gotten personal between her and David. She also confronts him about the hypocrisy of his actions, sending her to do his dirty work and then judging her later.
They travel to the hospital where a miracle has occurred: Saddler simply woke up, completely healed. Rachel and Jake realize the sick joke that this is: David has done away with Saddler and morphed him in his place. They go to the hall to try and frantically plan, since it’s one of the few times when they’ll know where David his. But Rachel is still angry about Jake’s hypocrisy.
“Look, Rachel, every one of us has his strengths and his weaknesses.”
“And my strength is being some kind of crazy killer?” I practically shrieked.
“Okay, fine, Rachel. You want to do this, fine. I think you’re the bravest member of the group. I think in a bad fight I’d rather have you with me than anyone else. But yeah, Rachel, I think there’s something pretty dark down inside you. I think you’re the only one of us who would be disappointed if all this ended tomorrow. Cassie hates all this, Marco has personal reasons for being in this war, Ax just wants to go home and fight Yeerks with his own people, Tobias . . . who knows what Tobias wants anymore? But you, Rachel, you love it. It’s what makes you so brave. It’s what makes you so dangerous to the Yeerks. I thought you’d scare David. I thought you’d say the things it took to scare him. I thought you’d say whatever you had to. And I thought that of any of us, David would be most likely to fear you.”
Rachel responds by saying that she has a line, and she knows where it is. Jake says he has his own line, but he learned here and now that it wasn’t where he thought it was: he was willing to use his friend and cousin to do his dirty work, and apologizes.
Back in the barn, the group put on a masterclass performance for David whom they know is lurking around inside spying on them. Everyone plays their roles, with Cassie upset about Saddler. Marco taunting Rachel about being beaten, Tobias not being there and them all referencing the fact that David killed him. Cassie tells a tall tale about having Ax break the blue box down into pieces and “slips,” mentioning that Rachel was the one to hide it with her. They all go home, poor Jake returning to his house where now Saddler!David is in residence.
The next day they arrange to meet with David at a Taco Bell. David swaggers in and Rachel forces herself to not smack him, but play the humiliated and defeated role that they all figured David would want to see. David announces that he wants Rachel to lead him to the box because he was (surprise!) spying on them in the barn and heard everything. (Again, it’s so shocking how stupid David thinks they are. Even the brief amount of time he had with them, you’d think he’d have a better read on their abilities, but guess not). They head to the construction site.
Rachel morphs rat, and then snake!David threatens to bite her unless the group all morph cockroach and climb into a jar he found lying nearby. He seals them in, knowing that they can’t demorph without crushing each other. He then morphs rat and Rachel leads him into the maze.
They get one piece (a blue lego block, but the rat’s poor eye sight can’t see that), but as they head for the second one, Rachel realizes that she can small fresh air and hear a jet plane, belying the fact that they are supposed to be deep underground. David begins to put things together, and Rachel makes a dash towards the exit pipe. They wrestle and Rachel privately thoughts speaks to the others to be ready. She turns, chews off her own tail, and dashes out, just avoiding getting hit with the box lid slamming shut behind her, trapping rat!David within.
The group explain to David that they planned it all, that Tobias wasn’t dead, and then they sink into silence as David tries to talk his way out of it, saying they won, he’d just be going now.
“You tried to kill us,” Jake said. “You threatened to turn us over to Visser Three. Not to mention what you’ve done to Saddler’s family.”
David cried.
“David, we have fought the Yeerks for a long time now. It seems like forever,” Jake said wearily. “We are not going to let you beat us. We are going to save the human race if we can. There are larger issues . . . more important . . .”
They all leave, but Rachel and Ax. Ax to keep time. Rachel because she volunteers, saying that she can take it. After two hours, David is trapped in rat morph and they fly him out to a rock on the ocean that is known to have a thriving rat population. Later, they hear rumors that the rock is haunted and that passing boats have heard yells of “No!’ coming from the rock.
Xena, Warrior Princess: This is a huge book for Rachel. Some fans, myself included, have theorized that the action of this book (not only her own choices with regards to David, but her realizations about how the others, and particularly Jake, see her) are a tipping point in her arc and a direct point of reference for the further struggles her character goes through, particularly in the last few books of the series.
From the very beginning, it’s clear that Rachel is pretty messed up by the fact that Jake sent Ax to get her specifically. At the same time, she completely agrees with his decision. Not only because she is particularly close to Tobias, but after Marco!David tries to kill Ax and is chasing and taunting her in bird morph, she knows that she is capable of leading David to his death. Jake was right.
But what seems to be the killing blow is the fallout from her one-on-one with David where she threatens his parents. Jake allows her to go. She does her thing, knowing it needs to be done and that that’s what Jake “sent” her to do anyways, but still feeling sick about it. And then, worst of all, later when they’re all in the ocean and David begins taunting her once again and exposing what she said to the group, they all just….leave her hanging out to dry. It’s not a good look for any of them, but particularly not Jake.
I’m completely with Rachel on this. It’s one thing to send someone to do your dirty work, it’s another to leave them at the mercy of your enemy’s psychological mind games and let your silence serve as judgement. They completely abandon her in this moment. And while when Rachel and Jake are fighting at the hospital, Jake apologizes and even owns up to the hypocrisy of his actions, it’s still not enough, in my opinion.
He lays too much of it at Rachel’s own feet, and doesn’t acknowledge the fact that the entire group let her down here. Regardless of their opinions on her actions and threats, several of them (definitely Jake, and we’d assume Ax and Marco would likely agree with this too) essentially approved of what she did when she did it. And beyond that, even if they disagreed, not sticking together in this moment, letting David pick out one of them and letting it stand, is a huge breach of teamwork and mutual support. So, badly done, y’all.
Through this all, through being used and judged by her friends, Rachel still proves her own strength in several small scenes. When they are all dolphins, as is typical of her, she draws the attention of the threat away from another (this time Ax) and to herself. We’ve seen her do this countless times now, and it’s pretty unique to her character. In a very human moment, she comforts her younger sister as she grieves the imminent death of their cousin Saddler. And, most importantly, in the end, she volunteers to stay behind as David is trapped as a rat. This is the ultimate self-sacrificial move. Beyond simply staying, she tries to relieve the others’ guilt for not staying themselves, saying that it won’t bother her. She muses that some of them may actually believe that. But it’s hard to really think any of them would (Cassie is her best friend, Tobias is her…something, Jake definitely knows this isn’t true after their conversations in this book. Maybe Marco? But he seems too smart to fall for this line).
Our Fearless Leader: Another big book for Jake and his leadership skills. This book is a good look at how cold Jake has become when he begins evaluating situations and the assets in his arsenal. In this case, his assets are his friends and he’s beginning to see and use them like tools. He’s surgical, accurate, and, yes, cold. When he’s confronted by Rachel in the hospital, he seems to be almost surprised by his own actions. But, while he does apologize, it also seems pretty obvious that if he had to do it over again, he’d do the same thing. Because he didn’t make the wrong choice, even if it was one that almost broke his cousin.
His biggest mistake, I still think, was not standing up for Rachel to David when he begins coming after her while they’re in the ocean. It’s pretty unacceptable to leave a team member hanging there, vulnerable to an enemy’s jabs. Better to support her in the moment, and then, if he had qualms, confront her later. It’s even worse because the confrontation never comes, at least not on his part. He never expresses any regret that Rachel threatened David’s parents, so the judgemental silence is even worse in the moment.
In the end, Rachel also admires Jake’s leadership abilities when he makes the rest of them leave her and Ax with rat!David. She recognizes the fact that he knows he needs to spare as many of them as he can from the traumatizing scene that is about to unfold.
A Hawk’s Life: David is really terrible at counting (as is Visser Three in Jake’s book when he fails to see cobra!Marco). I mean, there are a bunch of times when David had to have been lingering around and Tobias was there in morph. Most notably, all the points during the world leaders summit mission. Flying there. As rhinos/elephants. As dolphins. Clearly David was around since he was so easily able to intercept them in his killer whale morph. So how did he not catch this? Highly questionable for some who is a self-proclaimed “genius.”
Tobias is pretty instrumental to the final plan in helping get them out of the jar. But, other than the moments when David should have spotted him, he makes himself scarce for much of the book to keep up the facade. I do wish there had been more Tobias/Rachel scenes in this book. Their reunion was nice, but too brief. And poor Rachel was left without all of her support systems it seems. Not only did she not have any scenes with him to talk through all of this, but she also doesn’t get any time with Cassie, her other primary support person.
Peace, Love, and Animals: Cassie is on top of her manipulation skills in this trilogy! Her biggest move came during the cafeteria scene when David showed up to threaten them. She pointedly sits right next to him, reminding him that they are, in fact, people and not animals. And then talks very clearly to him about what he’s doing and the realities of trying to bargain with the Yeerks. It’s pretty slick.
Her morphing abilities are also paramount to their success with all of their morphs in the ocean during the storm. Rachel is pretty clear about how dangerous the water is and Cassie’s ability to quickly morph is one of the only reasons they manage it, with her able to be in dolphin morph to help the others. She’s also able to quickly leave, morph out of dolphin and then morph back to humpback whale during the fight with David.
In the end, she’s very broken up about what they have to do to David. But she also was the one to come up with the plan (again, probably largely due to her knowledge of animals and what morphs would work, but mostly because she understands people and could predict what David would want/do).
The Comic Relief: Marco ends up being the one to get sidelined a few times in this book. First getting attacked and left in a closet (more on that below) by David in the beginning, and then also needing to be shuffled out of the cafeteria once David shows up at school in a Marco morph. Part of me wonders if part of the reason Applegate did this was an attempt to work around the fact largely it was Marco, not Rachel, who had been set up as David’s primary rival (not only in his POV book, but Jake references the particular animosity between David and Marco several times in his book).
(Ran out of word count room, check out the link for full review!)
Narrator: Rachel
Plot: Part two was where things got real. Part three is where things get dark. Real dark. And I retreat to a hole of my own making and cry forever. Ax shows up in the middle of the night, waking up Rachel with messages of doom. David has truly gone off the deep end, Tobias is likely dead, and Jake is MIA after sending Ax to get her. They are able to figure out that David and Jake are at the mall and rush there only to find tiger!Jake unconscious and bleeding on the floor. Knowing David must be lurking nearby, Rachel takes charge and has Ax demorph to look around. Lion!David attacks her, but with some fancy gymnastic skills, Rachel is able to avoid him. In the process, David shares, again, his gross little philosophy about not murdering humans only “animals.”
The police show up and David takes off. Cassie’s parents show up as the local animal experts. Cassie’s mom, in particular, is confused since she recognizes the tiger as one from the zoo (Jake’s tiger morph original). Cassie shows up too and they are all concerned about not only Jake’s recovering but about needing him to wake up to demorph before the two hour limit. With Jake in Cassie’s (and her parents’) hands, Ax and Rachel fly to Marco’s to gather the troops, essentially. On the way there, Rachel thinks about how challenging this is all going to be, and even empathizes a bit with the frustration that Visser Three must feel: with the morphing ability, David could be anything and anywhere.
They arrive at Marco’s to find him sleeping in his bed, but as they fly in, Marco smashes Ax with a bat. It’s David in morph. He quickly demorphs and remorphs a golden eagle and chases owl!Rachel. Behind her, she is relieved to see Ax demorphing.
As David chases Rachel, he begins taunting her about killing Tobias. Up to this point, Rachel had been in a state of confusion, but with his words, she goes cold and knows what she has to do. She takes advantage of her better knowledge of her owl morph and manages to just stay ahead of David, leading him towards some power lines that he won’t be able to see with his daytime bird eyes. But just as she nears it, David manages to attack her. Just in the nick of time, David is attacked by a red tailed hawk. Tobias to the rescue! Not liking the odds anymore, David runs off. (How does David not put two and two together with this? Throughout this book, the fact that Tobias is still alive is a huge secret. Maybe David didn’t pay much attention to what kind of bird attacked him here).
Later, the group are back together. Cassie managed to jab tiger!Jake with a syringe and wake him up so that he could demorph and walk out of the vet’s office (Cassie’s mom was super freaked by the whole thing, discovering later that the tiger was somehow magically back in its cage at the Gardens and free of any injury). Marco had woken up to find David standing over him with a bat and had been tied up in a closet
They go to school, all exhausted and scared. Marco!David shows up and Cassie rushes to get the real Marco to hide. He sits with them and is his usual blowhard self, going on and on about how they should just give up now as he has their same abilities and is oh, so much smarter than them all.He wants them to hand over the blue box to. They refuse and David gets up to go, issuing more threats. Rachel follows, cafeteria fork in hand. Outside, she catches up with Marco!David and warns him that if he tries to rat them out to the Yeerks that they’ll know. David doesn’t know about the Chee, so Rachel is able to convince him that the Animorphs have a source within the Yeerk organization since how else would they have known about the world summit meeting. She goes further to say that if he did rat on them, they’d still have time to retaliate and would go after his parents.
“You know, maybe you forget this sometimes, but you are a girl, Rachel.”
“And you’re a worm,” I shot back. “Want to see who wins that fight?”
He swings at her and she neatly avoids it and jams the fork in his ear, getting her point across. After he leaves, Rachel is shocked by her own actions, especially her threat against his parents. Further, she finds herself becoming more and more angry at Jake. For sending for her in the first place, and all the implications that come with that. And the fact that he let her go after David here too, knowing what she would do, but also making her feel judged for being the one to do it.
What made me feel stupid was that I hadn’t realized I was changing. But everyone else obviously did. Jake did. When he knew it was coming down to kill-or-be-killed with David, he’d sent Ax to get me. Not Marco. Not Cassie. “Get Rachel.”
After school, the group meets back at the barn. After grilling Marco to make sure it’s really him, the group begin planning what to do about the world summit, since they still need to deal with that. Ax privately thought speaks Rachel telling her that they are putting on a show, assuming David is in the barn listening. After they all morph birds, they discuss the real plan. Rachel compares the new plan to a game of chess where you know you’re going to lose so instead you simply throw the board across the room.
They go to the Gardens to get morphs and then head to the ocean. There’s a huge storm rolling in, so the transition from bird to dolphin in the middle of the ocean is a difficult one. Cassie’s skill with morphing helps them all make the change safely. They swim to the beach outside the resort and then put their plan in motion: morphing big animals. Rachel, Cassie, Tobias, and Ax go elephant. Jake and Marco go rhino. The security at the resort was pretty unprepared for a bunch of huge animals to barge out of the ocean, so the plan to wreak havoc is pulled off well. Once the big guns show up, including Visser Three, the group retreat back to the ocean. Ultimately, the storm plays in their favor, hiding them and preventing the boats from getting in close.
But as they swim away, killer whale!David shows up (a question mark here: it seems fairly unlikely that David would have been able to anticipate all of this and have a killer whale morph on hand. He also wouldn’t know what ocean animal morphs the Animrophs would use. They could have all had killer whales themselves.) David, again, starts taunting them and tells the group about Rachel’s threat to his parents. The others are silent, infuriating Rachel, especially with Jake whom she thinks is a hypocrite for letting her go after David and then seemingly judging those same actions later.
David goes after Ax, but Rachel calls attention to herself and gets him to switch to her. Just in time, Cassie shows up in humpback whale morph (she manages to slip away during all of the taunting) and scares David off.
When Rachel gets home, she hears that her cousin Saddler is likely going to die. Rachel comforts her younger sister, Jordan. Back in her room, she hears David, talking to her in morph, hidden somewhere in her room, demanding the blue box again. Rachel asks what he’s going to do with it, make new Animorphs who can do to him what he’s doing to them? He’s silenced, but she doesn’t know if he’s left or not. She avoids the shower.
With her family, she heads to Jake’s house where they’re meeting to travel together to the hospital to see Saddler. Rachel tells Jake about David’s invasion of her room and that it’s gotten personal between her and David. She also confronts him about the hypocrisy of his actions, sending her to do his dirty work and then judging her later.
They travel to the hospital where a miracle has occurred: Saddler simply woke up, completely healed. Rachel and Jake realize the sick joke that this is: David has done away with Saddler and morphed him in his place. They go to the hall to try and frantically plan, since it’s one of the few times when they’ll know where David his. But Rachel is still angry about Jake’s hypocrisy.
“Look, Rachel, every one of us has his strengths and his weaknesses.”
“And my strength is being some kind of crazy killer?” I practically shrieked.
“Okay, fine, Rachel. You want to do this, fine. I think you’re the bravest member of the group. I think in a bad fight I’d rather have you with me than anyone else. But yeah, Rachel, I think there’s something pretty dark down inside you. I think you’re the only one of us who would be disappointed if all this ended tomorrow. Cassie hates all this, Marco has personal reasons for being in this war, Ax just wants to go home and fight Yeerks with his own people, Tobias . . . who knows what Tobias wants anymore? But you, Rachel, you love it. It’s what makes you so brave. It’s what makes you so dangerous to the Yeerks. I thought you’d scare David. I thought you’d say the things it took to scare him. I thought you’d say whatever you had to. And I thought that of any of us, David would be most likely to fear you.”
Rachel responds by saying that she has a line, and she knows where it is. Jake says he has his own line, but he learned here and now that it wasn’t where he thought it was: he was willing to use his friend and cousin to do his dirty work, and apologizes.
Back in the barn, the group put on a masterclass performance for David whom they know is lurking around inside spying on them. Everyone plays their roles, with Cassie upset about Saddler. Marco taunting Rachel about being beaten, Tobias not being there and them all referencing the fact that David killed him. Cassie tells a tall tale about having Ax break the blue box down into pieces and “slips,” mentioning that Rachel was the one to hide it with her. They all go home, poor Jake returning to his house where now Saddler!David is in residence.
The next day they arrange to meet with David at a Taco Bell. David swaggers in and Rachel forces herself to not smack him, but play the humiliated and defeated role that they all figured David would want to see. David announces that he wants Rachel to lead him to the box because he was (surprise!) spying on them in the barn and heard everything. (Again, it’s so shocking how stupid David thinks they are. Even the brief amount of time he had with them, you’d think he’d have a better read on their abilities, but guess not). They head to the construction site.
Rachel morphs rat, and then snake!David threatens to bite her unless the group all morph cockroach and climb into a jar he found lying nearby. He seals them in, knowing that they can’t demorph without crushing each other. He then morphs rat and Rachel leads him into the maze.
They get one piece (a blue lego block, but the rat’s poor eye sight can’t see that), but as they head for the second one, Rachel realizes that she can small fresh air and hear a jet plane, belying the fact that they are supposed to be deep underground. David begins to put things together, and Rachel makes a dash towards the exit pipe. They wrestle and Rachel privately thoughts speaks to the others to be ready. She turns, chews off her own tail, and dashes out, just avoiding getting hit with the box lid slamming shut behind her, trapping rat!David within.
The group explain to David that they planned it all, that Tobias wasn’t dead, and then they sink into silence as David tries to talk his way out of it, saying they won, he’d just be going now.
“You tried to kill us,” Jake said. “You threatened to turn us over to Visser Three. Not to mention what you’ve done to Saddler’s family.”
David cried.
“David, we have fought the Yeerks for a long time now. It seems like forever,” Jake said wearily. “We are not going to let you beat us. We are going to save the human race if we can. There are larger issues . . . more important . . .”
They all leave, but Rachel and Ax. Ax to keep time. Rachel because she volunteers, saying that she can take it. After two hours, David is trapped in rat morph and they fly him out to a rock on the ocean that is known to have a thriving rat population. Later, they hear rumors that the rock is haunted and that passing boats have heard yells of “No!’ coming from the rock.
Xena, Warrior Princess: This is a huge book for Rachel. Some fans, myself included, have theorized that the action of this book (not only her own choices with regards to David, but her realizations about how the others, and particularly Jake, see her) are a tipping point in her arc and a direct point of reference for the further struggles her character goes through, particularly in the last few books of the series.
From the very beginning, it’s clear that Rachel is pretty messed up by the fact that Jake sent Ax to get her specifically. At the same time, she completely agrees with his decision. Not only because she is particularly close to Tobias, but after Marco!David tries to kill Ax and is chasing and taunting her in bird morph, she knows that she is capable of leading David to his death. Jake was right.
But what seems to be the killing blow is the fallout from her one-on-one with David where she threatens his parents. Jake allows her to go. She does her thing, knowing it needs to be done and that that’s what Jake “sent” her to do anyways, but still feeling sick about it. And then, worst of all, later when they’re all in the ocean and David begins taunting her once again and exposing what she said to the group, they all just….leave her hanging out to dry. It’s not a good look for any of them, but particularly not Jake.
I’m completely with Rachel on this. It’s one thing to send someone to do your dirty work, it’s another to leave them at the mercy of your enemy’s psychological mind games and let your silence serve as judgement. They completely abandon her in this moment. And while when Rachel and Jake are fighting at the hospital, Jake apologizes and even owns up to the hypocrisy of his actions, it’s still not enough, in my opinion.
He lays too much of it at Rachel’s own feet, and doesn’t acknowledge the fact that the entire group let her down here. Regardless of their opinions on her actions and threats, several of them (definitely Jake, and we’d assume Ax and Marco would likely agree with this too) essentially approved of what she did when she did it. And beyond that, even if they disagreed, not sticking together in this moment, letting David pick out one of them and letting it stand, is a huge breach of teamwork and mutual support. So, badly done, y’all.
Through this all, through being used and judged by her friends, Rachel still proves her own strength in several small scenes. When they are all dolphins, as is typical of her, she draws the attention of the threat away from another (this time Ax) and to herself. We’ve seen her do this countless times now, and it’s pretty unique to her character. In a very human moment, she comforts her younger sister as she grieves the imminent death of their cousin Saddler. And, most importantly, in the end, she volunteers to stay behind as David is trapped as a rat. This is the ultimate self-sacrificial move. Beyond simply staying, she tries to relieve the others’ guilt for not staying themselves, saying that it won’t bother her. She muses that some of them may actually believe that. But it’s hard to really think any of them would (Cassie is her best friend, Tobias is her…something, Jake definitely knows this isn’t true after their conversations in this book. Maybe Marco? But he seems too smart to fall for this line).
Our Fearless Leader: Another big book for Jake and his leadership skills. This book is a good look at how cold Jake has become when he begins evaluating situations and the assets in his arsenal. In this case, his assets are his friends and he’s beginning to see and use them like tools. He’s surgical, accurate, and, yes, cold. When he’s confronted by Rachel in the hospital, he seems to be almost surprised by his own actions. But, while he does apologize, it also seems pretty obvious that if he had to do it over again, he’d do the same thing. Because he didn’t make the wrong choice, even if it was one that almost broke his cousin.
His biggest mistake, I still think, was not standing up for Rachel to David when he begins coming after her while they’re in the ocean. It’s pretty unacceptable to leave a team member hanging there, vulnerable to an enemy’s jabs. Better to support her in the moment, and then, if he had qualms, confront her later. It’s even worse because the confrontation never comes, at least not on his part. He never expresses any regret that Rachel threatened David’s parents, so the judgemental silence is even worse in the moment.
In the end, Rachel also admires Jake’s leadership abilities when he makes the rest of them leave her and Ax with rat!David. She recognizes the fact that he knows he needs to spare as many of them as he can from the traumatizing scene that is about to unfold.
A Hawk’s Life: David is really terrible at counting (as is Visser Three in Jake’s book when he fails to see cobra!Marco). I mean, there are a bunch of times when David had to have been lingering around and Tobias was there in morph. Most notably, all the points during the world leaders summit mission. Flying there. As rhinos/elephants. As dolphins. Clearly David was around since he was so easily able to intercept them in his killer whale morph. So how did he not catch this? Highly questionable for some who is a self-proclaimed “genius.”
Tobias is pretty instrumental to the final plan in helping get them out of the jar. But, other than the moments when David should have spotted him, he makes himself scarce for much of the book to keep up the facade. I do wish there had been more Tobias/Rachel scenes in this book. Their reunion was nice, but too brief. And poor Rachel was left without all of her support systems it seems. Not only did she not have any scenes with him to talk through all of this, but she also doesn’t get any time with Cassie, her other primary support person.
Peace, Love, and Animals: Cassie is on top of her manipulation skills in this trilogy! Her biggest move came during the cafeteria scene when David showed up to threaten them. She pointedly sits right next to him, reminding him that they are, in fact, people and not animals. And then talks very clearly to him about what he’s doing and the realities of trying to bargain with the Yeerks. It’s pretty slick.
Her morphing abilities are also paramount to their success with all of their morphs in the ocean during the storm. Rachel is pretty clear about how dangerous the water is and Cassie’s ability to quickly morph is one of the only reasons they manage it, with her able to be in dolphin morph to help the others. She’s also able to quickly leave, morph out of dolphin and then morph back to humpback whale during the fight with David.
In the end, she’s very broken up about what they have to do to David. But she also was the one to come up with the plan (again, probably largely due to her knowledge of animals and what morphs would work, but mostly because she understands people and could predict what David would want/do).
The Comic Relief: Marco ends up being the one to get sidelined a few times in this book. First getting attacked and left in a closet (more on that below) by David in the beginning, and then also needing to be shuffled out of the cafeteria once David shows up at school in a Marco morph. Part of me wonders if part of the reason Applegate did this was an attempt to work around the fact largely it was Marco, not Rachel, who had been set up as David’s primary rival (not only in his POV book, but Jake references the particular animosity between David and Marco several times in his book).
(Ran out of word count room, check out the link for full review!)
May 20, 2013
Brought to you by The Moonlight Library!
Rachel and the Animorphs have a terrible decision to make. David, the newest Animorph, has killed Tobias and turned traitor. He has all of their powers and knows their secret identities. They have to figure out how to stop him once and for all, before he murders them all or worse, turns them over to Visser Three.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I love the David trilogy. It’s probably my favourite part of the whole series, and this book is probably my favourite book out of the whole series. I’ll confirm that when I’ve re-read everything! I love how Rachel starts coming to terms with her own violent tendencies, how she’s beginning to be OK about being the ‘bad guy’ of the group. She’s still a good guy, after all. But most of all, I love how Cassie manipulates David, how she can read him so well that she knows exactly how he’s going to react, and that Cassie is the one to come up with the plan. The plan to end all plans. The plan that would leave them moral, but victorious.
David is the clear cut bad guy in this book. Only half of the book is dedicated to the ‘biggest mission’ the Animorphs have ever attempted: saving the Heads of State of several large nations from being infested by Yeerks. The Yeerks almost take a back seat in this novel. Their story is over by the half way mark. The rest of it is dedicated to the plan to end all plans, the plan to kick David’s touchey back to Doucheland where it belongs.
There’s only a few things I have a problem with in this novel.
Point the first: When David leaves Cassie’s barn at the end of the last book, Tobias follows him. Tobias loses him. David is legit convinced he’s killed Tobias, when it happens o be some other red-tailed hawk innocently flying around in the middle of the fucking night. I know red-tails are supposed to be common, but hawks are diurnal. It would be rare to come across some innocent hawk in David’s flight path that he mistook for Tobias.
Point the second: When David is busy killing Rachel at dawn, Tobias tackles the motherfucker. David is not blinded. David is also not stupid. He clearly sees two birds there, a half-dead owl and a hawk with pretty red tail feathers, and decides to retreat. He does not think that maybe this is Tobias, and that the mysterious nocturnal hawk was some innocent creature.
Point the third: When David attacks the dolphin-Animorphs using an orca morph, he doesn’t count them. He just assumes that pod of dolphins is five, when it’s really six. And he’s too busy chasing Rachel to realise one of them slips away, demorphs in the middle of a storm, and remorphs into a humpback whale.
Apart from those plot holes, this novel is by far one of the best in the series. I chalk it up to David’s megalomania and delusions of grandeur. And also, Cassie is fantastic in this book. She works so subtly and often behind the scenes.
February 25, 2014
A cousin gave me the first two Animorphs books for my birthday about fourteen years ago, and I was hooked immediately. I bought every edition that they had published. I only had access to the translated edition at the time in Indonesia, and to my great disappointment, the publisher stopped at #22. Imagine my glee when I found last year that the series is available online. I haven't bothered writing reviews because I've just been racing through the books, but after finishing this one, I feel that I have to stop and write something because... wow.
This is a children's series about war. Take away the aliens, and it's really just about war and what it does to people. When I was nine, all that struck me was how cool it would be to be able to morph into animals and how scary the aliens were. Now that I'm twenty-three, I'm struck by how unsugarcoated it is when it comes to how the characters struggle with being fighters. The Animorphs are forced to confront their morality, make harsh decisions, fight for the fate of the world, all while growing up. (I'm not sure how old they are, but I imagine around junior high or high school). How far would you go in a war if the fate of the world hangs in the balance? Terrible actions may be necessary to take, but what does that do to you then? This book in particular - along with the other two that forms the David trilogy - in my opinion does a brilliant job at asking those questions.
I love all of the Animorphs - Rachel is no exception. For one, I love the fact that it's the gorgeous girl who's the most fearless soldier in the group. But mostly, the exploration of her darker side and how she feels about having and using it is fascinating. I feel like I may be afraid of her and for her at the same time.
This is a children's series, but I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys quick but not meaningless sci-fi reads.
This is a children's series about war. Take away the aliens, and it's really just about war and what it does to people. When I was nine, all that struck me was how cool it would be to be able to morph into animals and how scary the aliens were. Now that I'm twenty-three, I'm struck by how unsugarcoated it is when it comes to how the characters struggle with being fighters. The Animorphs are forced to confront their morality, make harsh decisions, fight for the fate of the world, all while growing up. (I'm not sure how old they are, but I imagine around junior high or high school). How far would you go in a war if the fate of the world hangs in the balance? Terrible actions may be necessary to take, but what does that do to you then? This book in particular - along with the other two that forms the David trilogy - in my opinion does a brilliant job at asking those questions.
I love all of the Animorphs - Rachel is no exception. For one, I love the fact that it's the gorgeous girl who's the most fearless soldier in the group. But mostly, the exploration of her darker side and how she feels about having and using it is fascinating. I feel like I may be afraid of her and for her at the same time.
This is a children's series, but I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys quick but not meaningless sci-fi reads.
Read
August 10, 2022This whole run is just Animorphs at its peak, and the conclusion is absolutely chilling. So much fucked up shit happens in this book.
Can we talk about David acquiring an injured kid in a children's hospital, dumping him to his death in an elevator shaft, and then parading about as this miraculously cured child to the parents?? And then suddenly he disappears and his previously overjoyed parents get a call about their kid being found crumpled up in an elevator shaft?? I feel like this isn't remembered well enough in the list of fucked up things in Animorphs. It's so nonchalant, too, like these poor kids have so many bigger and worse problems to worry about they barely bat an eye about this kid (their cousin), but I like that the nonchalance about it is addressed for some worrisome introspection.
There is some great character development here, and a turning point for a lot of the characters as they're forced to face the way this war has changed them, and what they're capable of now. Both Jake and Rachel worry over how little they seem to care about what's happened to their cousin. Jake uses people, moving his friends around like chess pieces in a game. Cassie has always been perceptive, but now she has the capacity to use this to manipulate people. Rachel, who's ultimately the one who has to handle David, realizes her bloodlust and enjoyment of the war has consumed her, and she may be at a point of no return. Will they ever be able to return to a normal life after all this is over? Will they ever be satisfied?
Every one of them walks away scarred by what they have to do to David, and Rachel will probably never be the same. I just love these books.
(Also yoooooo at the Morphz.com and fan site dedication! Ahh, the golden years!)
Can we talk about David acquiring an injured kid in a children's hospital, dumping him to his death in an elevator shaft, and then parading about as this miraculously cured child to the parents?? And then suddenly he disappears and his previously overjoyed parents get a call about their kid being found crumpled up in an elevator shaft?? I feel like this isn't remembered well enough in the list of fucked up things in Animorphs. It's so nonchalant, too, like these poor kids have so many bigger and worse problems to worry about they barely bat an eye about this kid (their cousin), but I like that the nonchalance about it is addressed for some worrisome introspection.
There is some great character development here, and a turning point for a lot of the characters as they're forced to face the way this war has changed them, and what they're capable of now. Both Jake and Rachel worry over how little they seem to care about what's happened to their cousin. Jake uses people, moving his friends around like chess pieces in a game. Cassie has always been perceptive, but now she has the capacity to use this to manipulate people. Rachel, who's ultimately the one who has to handle David, realizes her bloodlust and enjoyment of the war has consumed her, and she may be at a point of no return. Will they ever be able to return to a normal life after all this is over? Will they ever be satisfied?
Every one of them walks away scarred by what they have to do to David, and Rachel will probably never be the same. I just love these books.
(Also yoooooo at the Morphz.com and fan site dedication! Ahh, the golden years!)
November 16, 2019
This is one of the most chilling books I've ever read. It has haunted me for twenty years. Upon re-read, it is just as bad, by which I mean just as good. The fact that this is a kid's book is incredible to me. People wrote these books off as lame and ridiculous in the 90s because the concept was ridiculous, and the covers were *waves at them*, but damn, by this point in the series, there was a serious turning point here. These books were always kind of dark, but the David trilogy? Hoo boy. I read all three books in an evening and I'm reasonably sure I'm going to have nightmares.
Well, it wouldn't be the first time.
This also has so much foreshadowing of things to come with these characters. There are things you do, decisions you make, that you just can't come back from, and Rachel in particular...well, she never really does.
Well, it wouldn't be the first time.
This also has so much foreshadowing of things to come with these characters. There are things you do, decisions you make, that you just can't come back from, and Rachel in particular...well, she never really does.
January 8, 2017
This is a story that breaks Rachel. I mean it just wrecks her. And I can't blame her for a minute for feeling that way -- for feeling used by Jake, for starting to question her own feelings regarding her role in the group, and what this war has done to change her -- and ultimately, even though she seems to square her shoulders and take it on straight up, it is still just heartbreaking to see. And man, the end result...
The only person who might have narrated this particular book with more heartbreak was, maybe, Cassie.
I haven't loved previous Rachel books, but this one was stellar.
The only person who might have narrated this particular book with more heartbreak was, maybe, Cassie.
I haven't loved previous Rachel books, but this one was stellar.
December 23, 2016
4.5... Entirely because, damn... DAMN, that ending. Christ. These books are getting *intense* yo.
December 27, 2018
This is the point where the Animorphs series gets metal AF - the solution the title refers to is the thing that made me go "holy shit this series is something I need to read."
March 25, 2023
the one where rachel confronts her unique affinity for ruthless violence, but then the whole gang becomes complicit in dooming a kid to a fate worse than death... the one where rachel realizes that loving the war or winning the war won't protect you from it, so maybe you and your friends just have to do your best to protect each other...
November 15, 2022
YEESH. How were these ever written for kiddos???
January 21, 2015
Holy shit. Maybe my favourite book so far. Rachel ♥
September 4, 2022
The darker sides of Rachel and Jake are absolutely riveting
July 20, 2024
A wonderful Rachel book. An easy five stars. The brutal consequences of the Animorphs' actions come to a head, and they have to confront their new war-warped identities. Rachel's violent darkness is what makes her so compelling, and it's fascinating to see her *socially* suffer from that, when her sociability is a big aspect of her character. The action is a bit over the top, and it works perfectly for Rachel.
Not to mention the ending that left me with a true pit of dread in my stomach.
Not to mention the ending that left me with a true pit of dread in my stomach.
Read
January 9, 2024[spongebob_staring_at_coffee.gif] sure was a Choice to come home from work and binge this book in 1 sitting on a monday night after talking to a coworker about climate change and the end of the human race
Displaying 1 - 30 of 275 reviews