Book Review: The First Journey by K. A. Applegate

Book #349 of 2021:

The First Journey by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs Alternamorphs #1)

I went into my adult reread of this choose-your-own-adventure Animorphs title with pretty low expectations, and yet it somehow still managed to disappoint. Who exactly is the audience here? The tone is more juvenile than the main novels, with lots of exclamation marks and a focus on the surface-level action rather than any deeper themes of sacrifice or the toll of trauma on child guerilla soldiers. The heroes are flat too, not to mention remarkably out-of-character throughout. (Ax’s dialogue alone is a travesty.) And Yeerk Controllers can suddenly be confused by earth customs and detected just by watching to see who’s acting strangely, despite how they’ve always had complete access to their host minds and blended in seamlessly to the environment before.

That all suggests a project that maybe wasn’t designed for the fans, but the story takes so many unexplained leaps that I can’t imagine a newcomer being able to follow along instead. The plot holes and contradictions like that nonsensical sario rip are weird even if you have a general sense of how the continuity “should” go, and lacking that context would surely make everything worse. Perhaps the as-yet-anonymous ghostwriter was likewise unfamiliar with the series, although that doesn’t explain why credited author K. A. Applegate or her editors let the resulting text go to print in such a flawed state. In any event, it’s a missed opportunity both to reward long-time readers by truly immersing them in the world of this franchise and to offer a compelling alternate on-ramp for anyone drawn to check out this volume first.

Structurally, it’s not much of a gamebook either; there are a total of six points at which we’re invited to pick among two or three options of what animal to morph, and in every case, all but one choice leads to death within a few pages. Really great choosable-path fiction offers a branching narrative that develops multiple competing throughlines and would take significant dedication to map out entirely. This book has only one correct plot to it, and it’s not a particularly enjoyable one at that. At least the whole thing is non-canon, and thus can be safely dismissed as a simple low-quality cash grab.

[Content warning for body horror and gun violence.]

★☆☆☆☆

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