Book #169 of 2021:

The Predator by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #5)

The fifth Animorphs novel gets a lot of its impact and forward momentum from a twist reveal near the end, of the sort I’m reluctant to spoil in a review despite the passage of decades. Suffice to say, we learn further details about the Yeerks’ internal power structure by meeting the high-ranking Visser One, whose presence opens up key storytelling avenues for the future. That encounter also cements Marco’s commitment to the fight, after he’s spent much of this volume planning to quit altogether.

And it’s hard to fault him for entertaining that thought, given how the book contains one of the more grisly and horrific early morphing experiences. Yes, it’s the infamous ant scene, wherein the young teens who are already struggling to resist the empty hivemind of their insect bodies as they travel through a tiny wall tunnel suddenly confront members of an enemy colony who attack in a swarm and begin ripping them limb from limb. (One of those moments when I have to again exclaim: they marketed these books to us as children!) It’s shocking in its brutality and humbling in its reminder of the small-scale warfare happening in the natural world around us, and it clearly weighs on the whole team afterwards. The trauma is getting to them, so it’s no surprise that at least one of the characters is starting to question if the mission to fend off the alien invasion is even worth it.

With that being said, I have mixed feelings on Marco as a narrator. I understand that his glib humor is a defense mechanism, and I have sympathy for his home life, where he’s had to become somewhat responsible for his own dad, stuck in a depressive spiral following the presumed death at sea of the boy’s mother. But he’s not always the most reflective and insightful about these things, so I tend to like him better through the eyes of his friends. Marco plots have a tendency to skew toward the ludicrous too, as in the opening chapter here when he morphs into a gorilla to stop a neighborhood mugging. He’s also our viewpoint later to Ax’s troubles with the human form, repeating parts of words that the extraterrestrial is not used to speaking aloud and going wild with his new sense of taste, grabbing bites off everyone’s trays in the local food court. There’s a slapstick quality to those scenes that feels a little out of place, which the protagonist’s sardonic commentary only amplifies.

Still, the title ends on an upswing of action, and is overall another strong look at the cost these kids are paying for stepping up to defend humanity. That adds a definite gravity to the affair, which will grow bleaker yet in the days ahead regardless of this hero’s jokes.

★★★★☆

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