Book #76 of 2022:The Test by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #43)This Animorphs novel is a direct sequel

Book #76 of 2022:The Test by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #43)This Animorphs novel is a direct sequel to ghostwriter Ellen Geroux’s earlier story #33 The Illusion, in which Tobias gets tortured by the unhinged sub-visser “Taylor.” The same antagonist is back for this tale, quickly recapturing the hawk boy after he makes the local news for leading rescuers to a missing child who’s lost in the woods during a raging storm. It’s an early example of the difficult moral questions looming over this volume: Should our protagonist risk his cover to help save the deaf kid? Can he trust that his abuser is earnest in her request for a partnership against their common foe? Will he participate in a terrorist attack on the Yeerk pool, knowing it would kill thousands of unwilling human hosts and noncombatant enemies along with the strategic target?That’s the mission that Taylor proposes, even freeing Tobias to bring the offer to his friends. Claiming to now oppose Visser Three, she wants them to morph Taxxons and dig a tunnel connecting a natural gas pipeline to the pool, which she will then carefully incinerate with just enough fuel to wipe out everyone inside the underground cavern without damaging its structure — which her new regime will still require to feed — or anything on the surface.It’s a tough moment for Tobias, who bluntly informs us that he’s still dealing with PTSD from his last time in her clutches and clearly can’t stop her from getting under his skin once more, but also for Cassie, who bravely stands up against her fellow Animorphs and refuses to take part in an operation requiring so much collateral damage to innocent lives. In a twist of deeply cruel dramatic irony, that positions the pacifist girl to step in and save the rest of the team when Taylor inevitably betrays them and tries to set off a massive explosion instead… which Cassie is only able to prevent by viciously battling a half-dozen human Controllers, something the teens have all sought to avoid whenever possible.Because Tobias is narrating this adventure, we don’t get to witness that fight firsthand. But we see the brutal aftermath of their unconscious, barely alive bodies along with the effect on Cassie, who’s out of morph sobbing, clutching herself, and unresponsive when he and the others arrive. In the meantime, we’ve also been shown the terrifying all-consuming hunger of the Taxxon morphs, which nearly results in Tobias and Ax both trying to eat their allies and overstaying the morphing limit to be stuck in those forms forever.In the end Taylor is gone and presumed dead, and the only real victory the heroes have accomplished is escaping without external injury and without having to actually bear the expected amount of death of their conscience. (Spoiler alert: it turns out the entire plot was a ploy Visser Three devised to try and slaughter the Andalite bandits and the faction of Yeerks favoring peaceful coexistence, who had organized to feed at the pool en masse at that time.) I would have preferred more space for Cassie’s perspective given how much she ultimately anchors the narrative along with Tobias, but overall this is another powerhouse production of teenage trauma and the bleakness of war from Geroux and credited series author K. A. Applegate.[Content warning for ableism, body horror, and gore.]★★★★☆Like this review?–Throw me a quick one-time donation here!https://ko-fi.com/lesserjoke–Subscribe here to support my writing and weigh in on what I read next!https://patreon.com/lesserjoke–Follow along on Goodreads here!https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/6288479-joe-kessler–Or click here to browse through all my previous reviews!https://lesserjoke.home.blog -- source link

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