Animorphs Book 4: The Message expands the stakes so that the #Animorphs understand that they are fighting for the whole planet. The team is completed when they rescue Aximili. Cassie learns both heavy responsibility and weightless joy.

Part of what this book does really well is take a kind of breather with a much slower quest. Their journey is urgent but it has a lot of travel time which leads itself to introspection. Cassie has a really good understanding of her fellow Animorphs and her books are usually the most insightful about the group as whole, so it was nice to see small insights and points of future character growth be established in this book.

The Predator gives Marco stakes that he can fight for, while also doubling down on the body horror with some insect morphs. It finishes getting all the Animorphs on the same page and establishes Yeerk politics at play on Earth.

This book deals with loss of a parent in a way that was just referenced earlier in the series, as well as finally letting us know what Marco is thinking behind all his jokes.

All of the books so far have dealt with the mental aspects of morphing, but this one is is the first that is truly terrifying based on what happens to them, not just what they think they might do. Your mileage may vary as to which morph is the creepiest, but morphs with exoskeletons really don't come out looking good here.

The Capture has a level of despair that really stands out this early in the series, it's more personal this time. We also get a Yeerk's perspective when there's no performance or politics involved, in a way that's dangerous to do again.

This book really soaks in the horror and helplessness of the Yeerk invasion/infestation for the controllers. It doesn't pull any punches for such a short story. I had forgotten that only half of the book is the capture but it feels like it took up much more space. The capture itself really stuck with me.

Rachel is offered a way out of her current life, and the Animorphs are offered a way out of everything when they meet the Ellimist. The nightmares and secrecy build a miasma of isolation that is gradually permeating the series.

This was the first series I read that dealt with divorce from the perspective of one of the children who was affected. I appreciate that it's part of Rachel's life without being the point of the book, let alone the point of the series. It affects her, but we mostly see it when she's the narrator instead of it being treated like the main trauma. It matters without sucking all the air out of the narrative.

I'm also really appreciating how much changes as the book moves on, I know 62 books seems like a lot, but they really have to handle a lot of moving pieces to get where I know the series ends up going.

‪Feedback by Mira Grant is refreshing. It’s zombies, politics, blogging, lesbians, a platonic marriage, the first genderqueer character I’ve ever read, death, and conspiracies. It’s an Irish girl in a sundress with a winsome smile as she shoots a zombie raccoon.

If that doesn’t make you want to read it, I don’t know what could. It mentions some main plot events from Feed, but, to be fair, Blackout mentions a pretty big event in this book. If you intend to read the whole series, I recommend starting with the original trilogy (Feed, Deadline, Blackout) before coming here, but if you are reading either one book or nothing, make damn sure you read this one.

The Andalite's Gift is both a pause from the marathon of the main series, and a strange kind of relay race for the Animorphs. This book is about exhaustion both mental and physical, terror, more nightmares, and losing oneself, with a little bit of hope at the end.

It has a strange place in the continuity because it addresses some consequences from The Stranger, but it can't move the story forward because people might miss something important then. What it does do is give the first glimpse of Ax's perspective because of the rotation narration, and it lets us see what each Animorph thinks of each other in relation to the same event. Cassie does the first in what will be an ongoing thing of her carrying out amazing and almost impossible feats of morphing and it's really cool to read, but unfortunately the Megamorphs books are stuck within the continuity in a way that means they can't work as a sample of this world in the way that the various Chronicles books are able to in a pinch.

The Alien deals with isolation, uncertainty, and learning when/whether to trust. Ax must decide whether he's one of the Animorphs or just conveniently aligned. Ax tells the humans how Seerow's Kindness doomed their planet.

This book stands out for being the first real look at how differently Ax approaches everything as an Andalite. Its treatment of isolation while surrounded by friends and allies manages to be insightful without just treating Ax badly for not embracing the Animorphs as completely as they welcomed him. It's a delicate balance because too far in one direction would make it harder to trust them as a unit later in the series, but making him trust them too easily would make the conflict in this particular book seem pointless. It helps that there is a specific reason that Ax is hesitant to trust that goes deeper than just being uncomfortable, and I think it's handled well here.

Cassie works through the tension between her ideals and the reality of war with the Yeerks, wrestling with the cost of survival for the human, animal, and alien bystanders. The nightmares are getting worse for everyone.

Each of the Animorphs have their own sense of morality and that starts to really stand out in this second round of perspectives. Cassie has the most empathy for the animals caught in the various crossfires and it's usually in her books that the most attention is paid to the Controllers who are hurt by their fight. The thing I don't understand is the decision to have this cover art feature a wolf when skunks feature WAY more prominently in this one.

The Animorphs meet the Chee and discover that they aren't alone against the Yeerks on Earth. There's a very well-done interplay between pacifism and practical immortality, exploring the consequences of violence for beings who cannot forget.

Only 10 books in there are a lot of ptsd-type nightmares going on in this series and this book paints a horrifying picture of how much worse it would be for the Animorphs if they couldn't forget, if the memories wouldn't become dull with time.

Something I don't want these reviews to lose sight of is just how...dark... this whole series is. At this point they're canonically in middle school and they have the weight of the planet on their shoulders. I know series for kids can feel overblown because they're trying to capture how big everything feels when you're younger and don't have the tools to solve problems, but Animorphs really does a good job of keeping alive the idea that just being a kid is hard enough while still keeping all the planet-defending stuff in proportion.

This series can be easy to dismiss with all the goofy book covers, but they're dark, darker than I can easily convey while staying away from spoilers.

(This book also raises the nerve-wracking answer as to where the extra mass goes during small morphs, I just wish it answered where the extra mass came from when doing large morphs.)