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quadrille 's review for:
The Escape
by K.A. Applegate
FIRST REVIEW / MAR 18, 2015
I am unmitigatedly, unabashedly, a Marco fangirl, and so I can't really help but give this 5 stars. Just as the strain is heavy on Jake to always be the confident leader, Rachel to be their gung-ho fearless one, Ax to be their knowledgeable galactic expert -- in Marco's POV books you can see him struggling with his own role as the comedian, the one keeping everyone else's spirits up. The group is a finely-tuned gyroscope, and if any piece of it gets out of sync, the others falter. Marco does his best to hide his depth and nuance, too, but things finally come to a head in this one, as the situation with his mother escalates. Just, fuck, all my feelings. His helplessness and murderous rage and obsession with not being pitied hits the heartstrings.
This book also advances the overarching story a bit more too, revealing that the Yeerks are carrying on other invasions of other planets, and the stakes on the other side of the galaxy are pretty damned significant...
The stuff with the sharks also bored itself into my memory when I read this in my youth. But I am deathly afraid of sharks so, uh, of course it would.
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SECOND REVIEW / MAY 1, 2020
I've fallen way behind on reviews thanks to #pandemiclife, so my reviews this month are going to be rushed haphazard garbage, sorry!
I still absolutely love this book, though. The terror of the mission, Marco trying to keep his secrets on lock, and the fact that these poor kids (they are not even in high school yet!!) are having to face questions like this:
The ending is so lovely and bittersweet: Rachel reaching out to make Marco feel better, him realising that it might be the truth rather than just a lie to appease him, him having to consciously decide whether or not to continue to nurse that helpless hope, even as much as hope hurts -- and then that last note about where he learned his tragicomic coping strategies to begin with. The parent-child feelings in this one had me tearing up all over again.
Favourite quotes moved to Google Docs.
I am unmitigatedly, unabashedly, a Marco fangirl, and so I can't really help but give this 5 stars. Just as the strain is heavy on Jake to always be the confident leader, Rachel to be their gung-ho fearless one, Ax to be their knowledgeable galactic expert -- in Marco's POV books you can see him struggling with his own role as the comedian, the one keeping everyone else's spirits up. The group is a finely-tuned gyroscope, and if any piece of it gets out of sync, the others falter. Marco does his best to hide his depth and nuance, too, but things finally come to a head in this one, as the situation with his mother escalates. Just, fuck, all my feelings. His helplessness and murderous rage and obsession with not being pitied hits the heartstrings.
This book also advances the overarching story a bit more too, revealing that the Yeerks are carrying on other invasions of other planets, and the stakes on the other side of the galaxy are pretty damned significant...
The stuff with the sharks also bored itself into my memory when I read this in my youth. But I am deathly afraid of sharks so, uh, of course it would.
---------------------------------
SECOND REVIEW / MAY 1, 2020
I've fallen way behind on reviews thanks to #pandemiclife, so my reviews this month are going to be rushed haphazard garbage, sorry!
I still absolutely love this book, though. The terror of the mission, Marco trying to keep his secrets on lock, and the fact that these poor kids (they are not even in high school yet!!) are having to face questions like this:
“Erek didn’t mean anything bad. You know that,” Jake said. “He just meant–”
“I know what he meant,” I snapped. “He meant if it came to crunch time, would I destroy my own mother to protect the mission? That’s what he meant.”
Jake grabbed my shoulder and turned me around. “And?”
I was still mad. But I knew why I was mad. It wasn’t that Erek had insulted me somehow. It was that Erek was right.
“I don’t know, Jake,” I said. “I don’t know.”
The ending is so lovely and bittersweet: Rachel reaching out to make Marco feel better, him realising that it might be the truth rather than just a lie to appease him, him having to consciously decide whether or not to continue to nurse that helpless hope, even as much as hope hurts -- and then that last note about where he learned his tragicomic coping strategies to begin with. The parent-child feelings in this one had me tearing up all over again.
Favourite quotes moved to Google Docs.