Book 61 to 66 - Blood and Gore and Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

chinchil1en
Dec 29, 2018
2 min read

Series: Animorphs

Author: K.A. Applegate

Genre: children's/YA sci-fi

Here's where shit starts to get real. Similar to the Harry Potter series, the protagonists' childhood is quickly and unceremoniously shoved away and left to die as they begin to grapple with the real-world consequences of their new reality - i.e. being a small group of teenagers trying to stop evil slugs from infesting humans and destroying the world.

You know - teenager stuff.

In 6, the crew boils a vat of Yeerks alive, essentially performing genocide on a vulnerable alien species. Jake gets infested, and readers gain a personal understanding of what it means to be utterly and absolutely powerless in your own body. We also have an intimate experience of that Yeerk's death, which, even knowing that it means the freedom of one of our protagonists as well as the continued safety ("safety") of Team Earth, is still pretty disturbing. In 10, we start to see more language that describes the "high" of a fun morph, like the power of a predator. This might seem innocent enough, but when you look at the use of that comparison in the larger context of the war these KIDS are fighting, it doesn't seem quite as fun. These teenagers are getting their limbs hacked off and barely surviving battles where they themselves are tearing living things apart with their bare hands - and then their power hands them a perfect way to dissociate from the pain in the form of riding the instincts of a badass morph. As a more tentative adult borne of an angsty teen, I can definitely see both the danger and the absolute allure of the situation.

On a lighter note, Applegate gets a chance to flex her sci-fi muscles, and it - is - AWESOME. I love Ellimist, and this being's grand entrance in 7 breathes life into the story, which by now, however many books in, is beginning to get depressing and somewhat monotonous (yeah, yeah, I know it's youth sci-fi...but STILL!). We also meet the Chee in 10, an android race that created dogs by infusing wolves with their dead creators' spirits? Sure, why not. Even with an arch as strange as that, Applegate has a way of stripping away narrative fat and getting right at the good stuff, and she also knows when to shift story direction to keep things interesting.