Scary opening for a minute when nobody is answering Cassie and she thinks she's all alone on the mission.

Forrrreshadowing.

The Australian outback is such a good setting for an adventure. I'd like to read a longer version of a story like this.

Actually there was that popular YA series "tomorrow when the war began", that was a great series.

Blech, always hate it when anyone has to morph a taxxon.

Also hate being confronted with tobias' torturer.

Probably not as much as Tobias does, though.

Great inside cover!

Is this one a "yikes" for everybody?

Maybe they just needed a break from a book every month for five years.

I owned most of these books and this was one of the ones I reread the most because of how poetic so many difficult personal struggles and fears are faced and worked through so rapid fire, it's pretty overwhelming without being trite.

This book ends perfectly,

I cannot remember the first time I read this series, but I can't imagine thinking anything other than "ah, The power of friendship!"

Which upon this reread is hilarious given how clearly the authors wanted to portray a gay couple in 2000, which wasn't done often in a series fronted by a major publisher.

It's another good book!

Yikes.

They really get at some horror here.

Credit to "no banana" for the image and Hobbes_Dent for the title.

Zero credit to me for doomscroll.

Haha yea. CinnamonBunzuh.

awesome

Ax gets a big ol' crush on

This is a great book, testing ax's loyalty again.

A very good example of people insisting they're doing some necessary thing for the greater good by becoming the thing they're fighting against.

The characters and their Dynamics were very interesting in this book, non-stop action.

I remember this book because as soon as you realize that Jake is gone, you're like oh shit.

Wow! This book is really good, dealing with leadership and Marco's criticisms and how poorly Rachel deals with the leadership she thought she wanted,

I also never understood why the garatron looks so much like an andalite.

Are they just like hey isn't evolution weird? This one thing looks like another thing but they're not the same thing.

I don't get why that was so important.

Also, I was so glad that Jake spoke with Rachel shortly at the end of the book. Perfect ending.

Since I learned the word estreen, the andalite word for an extremely talented morpher, I searched for fanart based on that and found some interesting stuff.

Beautifully colored, is this oil painting?

Artist is artbyLars

Update: Estreen! That's the word. Found it!

An exceptionally talented morpher is an estreen! I knew there was a word for it.

I can't find the word.

Isn't there a specific andalite word for how good Cassie is at morphing?

Artist - iara catunda

Yikes, I only remembered one scene from this book, and somehow managed to forget

Pretty hardcore.

And there's some cute Tobias Rachel back and forth.

Man, I wanna morph an orca.

Tons of good quotes in this one.

I like that inside cover too, how they can't actually show the guy

Ax is so funny as a human. When he finds out that Marco's dad is dating, and ax's been getting used to TV, he says <Ah. Perhaps your father is Young and Restless. Those who are Young and Restless frequently change mates.>

Love it.

You know what else is interesting, that both sides in this war look like humans, they look like anybody else, even though both sides can turn into murderers at the drop of a hat. Sure. The aliens look like humans, but the child soldiers who change into animals all the time and kill people also look harmless most of the time.

And Jake has a great line about how they're all different and they have to deal with their trauma in their own way.

And also Jake said I love you to Cassie! Wooo!

Marco has this great quote:

"Self-pity is the easiest thing in the world. Finding the humor, the irony, the slight justification for a skewed, skeptical optimism, that's tough."

I am definitely an unlikely optimist, I wonder if this book had any part to play in that particular personality development.

A great book for Cassie, although her books are always the most difficult because so many of her choices are to go against her nature as a pacifist and make some kind of sacrifice for the greater good. Like literally letting two different aliens control her in different books.

We get to read some impressive morphing showcases here and this inside cover is great.

The gang has a great plan to disrupt a dangerous new weapon and the plan mostly works until

Weird skin tones in that double andalite drawing. And a segmented rattlesnake tail, which I don't think we've seen before either and the tail has never been described looking like.

Mean Rachel and nice Rachel! Marco can date nice Rachel and mean Rachel can break his arm!

It's a win-win.

In which the brutality of being child soldiers is explicitly spelled out to dispel any doubt that these kids are not irrevocably traumatized when

I like this book because they really let you know that things are not going to be okay and these kids are not going to pull up out of the trauma that's going to shape the rest of their lives. This war has already ruined their morality and ethics and general social interdependency, and things are not going to get better.

This is kind of the book where you know things are not going to get better or get wrapped up neatly, no matter what happens.

Otherwise known as the book that makes everybody cry or throw up

The concluding scene in which

was maybe the most stressful thing I had ever read up to that point.

I had read a more dramatic events in other books, but I knew the gang so well that it was extremely harrowing seeing Cassie make this decision.

Hilarious when Marco suggests that ax sees how many cinnabons he can eat before exploding, and ax says, oh yeah no, I already did that.

Also, how weird is this inside cover, why is Cassie giggling and pointing at a cow?