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thejanewayprotocol's review against another edition
3.0
I don't think I read this one when I was younger?? I don't remember this one at all...I have to say that the title did let me down a bit... i thought this would be more backstory into Elfangors life as a human or maybe when Tobias was born....
In this installment we are dealing with the time matrix again, and I have to warn you, if you are really picky about your time travel storylines adding up then just skip this one. It was all over the place, and it was just a hot mess.
Some good things happen in this installment though: I can definitely start to see the gang grow up. This was the grittiest battle for them yet, and ironically it wasn't even Yeerks they were fighting: it was their own kind. I wish we had more Ax chapters to see how his interpretation of human nature took shape; studying them up close for months and then seeing what we were like hundreds of years ago. It would have been interesting.
I didn't realise how much I really loved Jake until I read that
Also, Tobias and Rachel's kiss was really underwhelming. I mean, I have shipped them from like, book three but I didn't want their first kiss to be a rip off of Jake and Cassie's from a couple books earlier! They deserved their own special moment dammit!
All in all, a nice break from the Yeerk war, but not my favourite Animorph tail. (See what I did there??)
In this installment we are dealing with the time matrix again, and I have to warn you, if you are really picky about your time travel storylines adding up then just skip this one. It was all over the place, and it was just a hot mess.
Some good things happen in this installment though: I can definitely start to see the gang grow up. This was the grittiest battle for them yet, and ironically it wasn't even Yeerks they were fighting: it was their own kind. I wish we had more Ax chapters to see how his interpretation of human nature took shape; studying them up close for months and then seeing what we were like hundreds of years ago. It would have been interesting.
I didn't realise how much I really loved Jake until I read that
Spoiler
his brains had been blown out. Even though I knew he would make it out alive - obviously, we are only half way through the series and he is on a bunch of covers still! I missed him terribly as a narrator.Also, Tobias and Rachel's kiss was really underwhelming. I mean, I have shipped them from like, book three but I didn't want their first kiss to be a rip off of Jake and Cassie's from a couple books earlier! They deserved their own special moment dammit!
All in all, a nice break from the Yeerk war, but not my favourite Animorph tail. (See what I did there??)
wolverinefactor's review against another edition
5.0
This book covers so much. It’s very heavy for a kids book series. Some really good stuff goes down and I you can definitely tell this one wasn’t ghost written.
neonnikki's review against another edition
5.0
I'm sure I read this as a kid, because I loved the Megamorphs, but I couldn't remember anything that happened in this one, so it was like reading this for the first time which was extra fun. It was crazy, but it addressed a stack of issues one would run into with time travel. Good times.
prairiedances's review against another edition
4.0
Trying to finish up my Goodreads book challenge for the year so I pulled out this quick childhood read from 1999 to reread. Still good. Time travel, history, Jake in danger...good stuff. My only complaint is that as a adult reading this the characters aren't written as differently as I remember. Still, I like that it raises complex ethical questions for YA readers.
kavtom's review against another edition
5.0
Time travel is my favourite part of sci-fi so I was bound to love this story because of that alone. And this adventure offered many twists and turns. And so much emotional trauma.
divine529's review against another edition
Definitely my favorite in the series so far. Its insanely good!
manwithanagenda's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.5
I can usually get down with a good time travel story, but this was so, so, not good. This is the third time travel story for the Animorphs. I really enjoyed the goofy science and temporal mayhem of 'The Forgotten' and the previous Megamorphs 'In the Time of the Dinosaurs', by the way, but this was too much to handle.
Applegate makes a real effort to describe life conditions of the time periods (especially filthy, filthy Agincourt) and how reality differs from myth (Washington crossing the Delaware), but the story was just a mess.
I still don't care about the 'Drode', who exists only because Applegate didn't think about how immovable her off-brand Sauron 'Crayak' was. She needed to invent a lackey, but, he was irritating. And where was the Ellimist? I never thought I'd miss him.
It's a shame, because there are very few Applegate-written Animorphs books left, and this one is the worst so far.
Animorphs
Next: 'The Reunion'
Previous: 'The Sickness'
Applegate makes a real effort to describe life conditions of the time periods (especially filthy, filthy Agincourt) and how reality differs from myth (Washington crossing the Delaware), but the story was just a mess.
I still don't care about the 'Drode', who exists only because Applegate didn't think about how immovable her off-brand Sauron 'Crayak' was. She needed to invent a lackey, but, he was irritating. And where was the Ellimist? I never thought I'd miss him.
It's a shame, because there are very few Applegate-written Animorphs books left, and this one is the worst so far.
Animorphs
Next: 'The Reunion'
Previous: 'The Sickness'
kelseyr713's review against another edition
5.0
This one really goes some places (both in a time travel sense and emotionally/thematically). The first chapters are disconcerting because something is very wrong, but push through that and it all makes sense.
pavedwithbookss's review against another edition
4.0
I am on a mission to finally finish reading the entire series of Animorphs, complete with its spin-offs. For a while, I was on a roll, but then around #35, the quality dipped and I lost interest. I found this book in my iBook app while I was mindlessly scrolling through my phone though, and I was hooked back in.
The beginning was really confusing - I would explain but I feel that would be spoilery - but it's all explained quickly enough, so hang in there! I love time-travel, alternative history type of plots, so this was right up my alley. Plus, after several disappointing installments, I felt that this was a return to form. There were genuinely funny moments alongside ugly moments. Animorphs at its heart is a war story, and while it's very much humans (plus good aliens) vs. bad aliens, this one is about humans' wars. From Agincourt to Normandy, our heroes encountered the brutality of man-made war. Applegate didn't hold much back; if I had any romantic notion about the battlefield, it's well and truly dashed.
At times the main plot felt a little lost among the chaos of the actions, and weirdly enough I got so distracted by the alternative histories that I nearly forgot about the Time Matrix, the thing that made it all happen in the first place. Plus, as much as I agree with the message that war is an awful thing, there were moments when it started to feel just a touch preachy. Nevertheless, this has restored my interest in Animorphs.
I can't end this review without mentioning the moment Cassie was confronted with overt, seriously ugly racism. Her response was brilliant.
The beginning was really confusing - I would explain but I feel that would be spoilery - but it's all explained quickly enough, so hang in there! I love time-travel, alternative history type of plots, so this was right up my alley. Plus, after several disappointing installments, I felt that this was a return to form. There were genuinely funny moments alongside ugly moments. Animorphs at its heart is a war story, and while it's very much humans (plus good aliens) vs. bad aliens, this one is about humans' wars. From Agincourt to Normandy, our heroes encountered the brutality of man-made war. Applegate didn't hold much back; if I had any romantic notion about the battlefield, it's well and truly dashed.
At times the main plot felt a little lost among the chaos of the actions, and weirdly enough I got so distracted by the alternative histories that I nearly forgot about the Time Matrix, the thing that made it all happen in the first place. Plus, as much as I agree with the message that war is an awful thing, there were moments when it started to feel just a touch preachy. Nevertheless, this has restored my interest in Animorphs.
I can't end this review without mentioning the moment Cassie was confronted with overt, seriously ugly racism. Her response was brilliant.