The Predator is strangely named. I’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes trying to figure out who exactly the predator is in this book, and I still don’t have a definite answer. This book is nominally about the Animorphs trying to carry out Ax’s plan of luring a Yeerk ship to the ground, stealing it, and then hightailing it back to Andalite space (where, theoretically, he can send reinforcements back to the Animorphs), but really, it’s about Marco finally committing to the mission. Until now, […]
Teenage hawk identity crisis.
I never cared as a kid, but as an adult, wow; this book is bleak. Well, I shouldn’t say “bleak,” because ultimately, the book does have a relatively uplifting ending, and I tend to associate bleakness with a lack of hope or optimism, which isn’t this series at all, no matter how dark it goes. But I think this book and what it’s willing to do with Tobias’s character is an example of one of the many reasons I loved this series so much when […]
The fight gets personal for Rachel.
It’s weird that what struck me the most about this second book in the series after reading it for the first time in lo these many years is how small everything feels. As the series goes on, every book features our young heroes taking on bigger challenges with more and more devastating consequences, but here, the mission is small, and Rachel’s goals even smaller. It’s emotionally intimate. The Visitor is Rachel’s first POV book. Rachel is the beautiful, fashion-conscious one, but she’s much more than […]
Re-reading an old favorite.
So one of the things I did in middle school instead of being cool was read this series, over and over and over again. It’s pretty much the reason I love reading science fiction; it was all up in my head and re-wiring my brain during my formative years. Over Christmas, my mom finally succeeded in getting me to brave her garage and pull out boxes of my old books that she’s been storing for years, and what did I find in two of them […]