Reviews with content warning for Confinement - The Invasion

Wasn't allowed to read these growing up so now doing my own belated book club. Blown away at how good this is right out of the gate. Has a great campy sentai-show setup but pulls no punches with how gruesome this intergalactic war actually is. All of the morph descriptions are straight body horror, and the violence only gets away with being this gory because of Halo rules (it's not blood, it's yellow goo).

Our first POV, Jake, is fully the likeable leader boy archetype, but the character voice is so strong it hardly matters. Particular highlight is dog brain, which is exactly what you'd expect but even more charming. Under the YA nonchalance is a surprisingly affecting tragedy, particularly Jake's distant relationship with his brother (I imagine we'll see even more devastating scenes from the other POVs whose family life seems even more complicated).

Great start to this series. I am sure it goes off the rails over the next 50 (!!) books, but I'm fully bought in right now.

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emmsiej95's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I don't know what Katherine Applegate was planning with this series. It's aimed at 8 - 12 year old.
I'm 27 and I am traumatised by the body horror and psychological horror in this book.
I loved it.

The kids become Animorphs and need to found out about their new parasitic foes.

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jessthanthree's review

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adventurous lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

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kstericker's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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zombiezami's review

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I was always to afraid to read these books or watch the show when I was a kid. Even as an adult, I find the themes pretty intense; the characters are, for all intents and purposes, child soldiers. It seems like it’ll be interesting to continue though

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ramiel's review

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful tense fast-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

A stellar starter in the series, as I've said in my other reviews: making a solid foundation for the series as a whole to build from. The kids are all so young and unaware of the world around them, just as any first time reader would be jumping in without any spoilers. It's a children's book, it's middle school kids who can turn into animals and fight the forces of evil, Saturday cartoon style. Comic book style, as Marco wishes later ("because the good guys don't die in comic books").

This book carries you along, and while it's a quick read it slowly and carefully reveals the story at hand. While Elfangor's death was an incredible tragedy that shook the kids to the point of being something that they carried with them constantly, while the story starts out with his anguished cries, while detailed and despairing it still doesn't completely reveal everything about to come. That's saved for the yeerk pool.

When the kids get to the yeerk pool, that's when things become clear. "We were so few, and so weak". The kids lost the fight, Tom was recaptured, but one woman went free and the children escaped with their lives, escaped to live and fight another day. The fight at the end turns out to be what the entire series felt to me in the end: a strange juxtaposition of futility and hope both existing in the same place at the same time. This is not an insult, nor is it saying it's "better" than any other story - what it does is make the story it's own, it fits because it was created to fit. Very little feels forced in the first few books, and, again, they serve as a good starting point for the anti-war themes the story seems to convey.

No glory in battle, only tragedy and hope for a day when all is well.

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magicalghoul's review

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adventurous dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This was a place of unimaginable horror. And we were so few, and so weak.

♢ 1/62 OF THE ANIMORPHS REREAD

⚠ tws for the entire series: war, death, child soldiers, child death, descriptions of gore, body horror, discussions of parental death, slugs, parasites, loss of free will, depictions of PTSD and trauma, ableism, imperialism.

Where to even begin.

Animorphs is one of those pieces of media that I find myself revisiting every few years. It's fantastic despite its flaws and I'm awed and moved by the themes and the treatment every single time. And on a reread it's even more clear that the intent of the animorphs series was never to romanticize war, nor to talk down to its young audience— something crucial, considering the heavy subject matter it was treating.

The Invasion is a great first installment that sets the basics for every character motivation and the future conflicts they'll face just as well as the theme and tone for the rest of the series: a bleak (albeit not completely hopeless) one that's not here to do pro-war apologism, who will take the premise of "Kids given powers to fight in a war" and take it to it's full realistic potential, one that won't shy away from its portrayal of PTSD and the heavy mantle of war on those who have to fight it.

Also: Petition to recategorize these books as horror because wow, certain passages are scarier than some of the horror media I've consumed recently.

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