Favorite Animorphs books and why

[sherrilina]

Now I haven't done a full re-read yet, but from memory of when I read the series (and some rereads of fave books anyway), here are my top ten favorites, in no particular order:

#6 The Capture
#17 The Underground
#19 The Departure
#23 The Pretender
#29 The Sickness
#49 The Diversion
#53 The Answer
The Andalite Chronicles
Megamorphs 3: Elfangor's Secret
The Hork-Bajir Chronicles (this one was hardest to pick)

These were the books I've reread and enjoyed the most, with the most interesting plots to me.....I loved learning about being a controller in #6, the excitment of the Yeerk Pool invasion and having to pretend to be a controller at one point in #17, the moral questions and Aftran in #19, Tobias learning that he's Elfangor's son (how cool was that?! Finally!), everyone getting sick and Cassie having to save the day and actually morph into a freaking YEERK (also VERY cool, and more YPM!) in #29 (a book that was good enough not to be ghost-written IMO), Tobias meeting his mother and everything going to hell for Jake and everyone telling their families at last in #49, and the excitment of the final showdown in #53.  Then TAC is just so wonderful period--I think it may be my fave of all, I can just read it over and over again (and have done so--I think it's the one I've read the greatest number of times), and THBC is pretty sweet as well (though so is Visser, it was hard to pick!).  And MM3 with it's AU and history was the coolest MM for me.

What about you guys?  What are your top ten favorite Ani books, and which is your ultimate favorite do you think?

[nothlitlifestyles]

Oh wow, now this is a hard question.... but I'll take a shot at it. In no particular order.

#01 The Diversion: This Book was one I had been waiting for for a long time in multiple ways, first and foremost I couldnt wait for the Animorphs to be forced into hiding and to come out and tell their families. I knew it was coming at some point. Not to mention that it was time for them to be able to come out of hiding and fight face to face not always worried about their families. And also because I always knew Loren would make a return and just wasnt sure when.

#02 The Visser Chronicles: It was amazing, we finally got to see something from the Yeerk point of veiw. As well as I loved Marco being able to talk to his mother I was grateful for that part.

#03 The Conspiracy:Quite possibly my absolute favorite, I loved the war in Jakes mind and him
having to save his father and how the animorphs stopped him from ruining everything by finding a way to let Tom live. Because it was obvious Jake never would have recovered from having to kill Tom even if it was to save his father.

#04 The Sickness: It was just so new on so many fronts, with Cassie having to operate on ax, Ax being infested (even if only momentarily), Morphing a Yeerk, and Cassie having to go on a mission all alone, with me thinking the whole time she wouldnt perform up to standard

#05 The Escape: I just really liked this one. Thats just all there was to it I just really enjoyed reading this one.

#06 The Decision: I liked seeing the war being fought on another front than Earth it was a nice little change of pace, (I know there were the Chronicles but it was nice to see the animorphs working to save another planet as well)

#07 The Illusion: Mainly just for the scene where Tobias sees Elfangor. It was a good moment. I liked it.

#08 The Sacrifice: They finally blew up the yeerk pool I mean come on, I had been wanting that to happen for quite some time, and they found a way to try and release as many freed hosts as possible

#09 The Encounter: though this may not sound like a good reason but its the book that introduced me to animorphs. I gotta love it!

#10 The Andalite Chronicles: For more reasons than I could probably begin to list.

[morfowt]

this is gonna be hard

#26 the attack: I'm not sure why. I just always loved that book.

MM#2 in the time of dinosaurs: that one was great. It's dinosaurs! need I explain more?

#28 the experiment: I loved that ending. the animorphs didn't have to do anything and it would've failed.

the david trilogy: David is one of my most favourite characters and ranks number 4 in my favourite animorphs. I also feel that we didn't know enough about him. So in books that we do know something, I like.

#19 the departure: 1. cuz cassie was gonna become a nothlit. and at the very end she escaped that fate
2. cuz it showed that yeerks could be good as well. and the yeerks (or at least some yeerks) have a kinda decent reason for doing what they do

#45 the revelation: marco's dad finds out about the animorphs, and marco gets his mom back. Sounds like a good book to me.

#49: same reason as nothlitlifestyles's

#54: the beginning: a pretty satisfying ending, in my opinion. coulda been better, but still pretty good.

[RYTX]

Dude how was this not like the first thread?

Anyway; cool I list, now I don't have to choose just one:
#13,
#49
#5
#45
The Trilogy
#26
MM 2
MM 3
And that's all I can think of right now.
The Trilogy, no, that doesn't need explaining.
49 and 45, huge turning points, letting the parents get involved, and petty damn good for ghost written ones.
26 is probably the best in terms of fight sense and display of enginuity in the series.
13 was the first I read, and is still pretty cool what with the free Hork-Bajir and Tobias getting the powers back.
5 is cool simply cause it dragged Marco into the fight for good.
And both of those Megamorphs I liked; time travel and total chaos, what's not to love?

[Qwerty the Charliecorn]

In order from greatest to least...

The Invasion
The Capture
The Sickness
The Illusion
The Escape
MM4
Visser

I love almost all of the books, though. This is, like, the longest series ever, lol.

I really enjoyed the exciting ones. I always love a book that gets my heart pounding.

[nothlitlifestyles]

I think I would have to agree with the capture even though I didnt include it at first, mainly though because I loved how it introduced the crayak and I remeber every book that came after that wanting to know more about what he had seen. It was interesting to me

[Hylian Dan]

Top Ten, roughly in order of preference:

1st: #22 The Solution: Awesome book on so many levels, and incredible development of Rachel's character. It has so many incredible scenes: the opening with David seeming to kill off the Animorphs one by one and Rachel's frustration over failing to avenge Tobias, shouting "I'll kill you!" repeatedly as David slinks away. Then Rachel stabbing the fork in David's ear and threatening to go after his family--David later reveals this to the Animorphs and none of them come to Rachel's defense. Rachel's suspicions about Jake, Rachel comforting her sisters only to be mocked by David as she's about to shower, the situation with Saddler and Rachel's long conversation with Jake, concluding with them hugging, and then the Animorphs final strategy to defeat David. The threat of David's presence gives the whole book this climate of fear, especially as he gets closer to Rachel and is able to torment her psychologically. And I love how complex Rachel's character is in this one, how we see her deep concern for certain people, her vehement hatred of David, her introspection and her emerging inner darkness.

2nd: MM#4 Back to Before: I love Tobias's tragic storyline in this one. I feel deeply sympathetic towards him, and I like seeing how he starts to develop a sense of worth while playing pool. The Sharing offers him a completely new life, and it's interesting to feel his sense of wonder as he actually experiences kindness from strangers. KA also shows us Tobias's fatal weaknesses in a sympathetic way: his overwhelming self-pity and desire to escape his life. It's sad to see how Tobias looks up to Jake and wants to be more like him, only to feel betrayed when Jake leaves the Sharing. And later Jake pointedly tells Tom that Tobias isn't his friend. The scene when the Sharing finally turns against Tobias is one of the darkest and most tragic moments for Tobias's character throughout the series, I think. And when the Yeerk is shuffling through Tobias's memories before they die, Tobias gives a speech that's worded in a way that seems to be KA's earnest advice to anyone who is contemplating suicide.

The other storylines in this book are also incredible, and they offer a very fresh perspective of the characters we've known for so long and the Yeerk invasion. It's really unsettling seeing how the kids slowly discover the truth about the Yeerks without Elfangor explaining everything to them. Tom is a fairly scary villain since Jake is no longer aware of the menace that he is and starts making dangerous mistakes. I love how Visser One deals with Marco and Rachel chasing her, slamming the revolving door against them, attacking with a broken bottle, and summoning her thugs when she gets cornered in the alley. There's the hilarious scene with Ax in the mental hospital. And finale, we get the full-blown alien invasion of Earth, with spaceships chasing the kids through their neighborhood and the deadly battle at the mall. Awesome story, and the opening and closing scenes with Jake and the Drode are great bookends for it.

3rd: #30 The Reunion: The three way war between Visser One, Visser Three, and the Animorphs. Awesome. It's another one of those books with an intense plot, numerous highly memorable scenes, great humor, strong characterization, and interesting philosophy. Eva telling Visser One to go to hell, Visser One giving the Animorphs her email address, Marco imagining the boy learning about the Animorphs in history class, Marco resenting his friends' pity, Tobias destroying Cassie's window, the Animorphs pretending to be Andalites while Visser One makes her way to the mountain, Visser One discovering their secret, and the final battle atop the mountain with Marco finally revealing himself to his mom. Great stuff.

4th: Visser: Extremely well written. The Yeerks invade Hollywood: brilliant. Edriss 562 is utterly fascinating. She's hideously ruthless and evil, and yet, she manages to develop some human goodness. Eva even comes to the aid of her tormentor when she discovers that Edriss is also a mother. Visser Three is at his most vile, attempting to force his rival to murder her own son. The book takes a very interesting look at human nature, exploring the greatest strengths and deepest weaknesses of our species, and I love how Edriss's plan to conquer Earth is based on exploiting basic human weakness. And then there's finally the reunion between Marco and his mom, and Marco explaining the saying "Live free or die" to Edriss. But then Eva makes the heartbreaking decision to return to her captors, only to be sent off to Anati.

5th: #53 The Answer: Brilliantly juggles the themes and characters of the series. Totally epic and climactic and nerve-wracking and shocking and brutally tragic.

6th: #43 The Test: I like seeing how far Tobias has come since the beginning of the series. He's much stronger here as he struggles to come to terms with his past. I love the scene where he morphs Taylor, and how Tobias describes the experience. The insatiable hunger of the Taxxon is an interesting theme for the story. The atmosphere throughout the book is fairly unsettling, since we don't know just what Taylor is actually up to. The ending line is great: "The past is the past, Tobias. Let it go."

7th: #45 The Revelation: I love the opening scene, the happy dinner Marco's family has before absolutely everything is flipped upside-down. Marco's dad: "I have a feeling things will never be the same for us again." Marco manages to get his dream to come true, but sacrifices Nora in the process. The action sequences are extremely cool.

8th: #13 The Change: I really like the scenes between Tobias and the Ellimist, and the ending, with Tobias revealing his human form to Rachel.

9th: #7 The Stranger: I like the side that we see of Rachel in this one. Her frailties all come to the surface and she envies the grizzly's complete confidence. The future world is really cool, and I liked how Tobias briefly returned to his human form. The whole deal with the butterflies and hurricanes is neat, makes me think of the song by Muse.

10th: #8 The Alien: Another great character-driven book. Extremely hilarious and poignant at the same time. I like how it explores Ax's relationship with each of the Animorphs individually before he makes the decision to trust them and accept them as friends.

Books that barely missed making the top ten, in chronological order:
#3 The Encounter
#6 The Capture
#19 The Departure
#35 The Proposal
#49 The Diversion
#50 The Ultimate

Also considered:
#17 The Underground
#23 The Pretender
#26 The Attack
#33 The Illusion
#48 The Return
#52 The Sacrifice

[musicman88]

3, 13, and 33 because I'm a huge Tobias fan!

[Estelore]

#31 (The Conspiracy, I think), with the Peregrine Falcon on the cover.

I loved that more effort was put into developing Tom's + Jake's relationship as both brothers and secret enemies.

And I love Falcons.

And the scene with the car alarms going off.

[ANItiger13]

Man, it's really hard to choose from 60 something books. but...I'd have to say I really liked #26 The Attack. It was just cool. Seemed like the nearly perfect Animorphs book to me. It had aliens, action, romance, Crayak and the Ellimist.

[Kharina]

1) 19 The Departure.  It changed the whole way I viewed Yeerks and the series, and possibly the way I view wider life as well.  Plus Aftran is my favourite character.

2) 29 The Sickness.  Should be obvious why after reading the above.

3) Visser.  I loved the twist with Visser One, and it was nice to have a whole book from a Yeerk's POV, even one of the more ruthless ones.

4) 43 The Test.  I just liked this one.

5) 8, The Alien.  Sheer hilarity Pretty much any Ax book is good, I always bought those ones first.

I loved them all, though!  And my preferences do change depending on my mood.

[Chad32]

It's really hard to pick just ten, especially since I haven't read any oif the books in such a long time. I think I may have missed a few as well, since I don't remember Visser Two at all.

I loved the vast majority of them, although the later books were more tense. It felt like the whole thing was coming to a head, which it pretty much was, in the mid 40s and forward.

I can't pick just ten, but in general I liked the first forty-ish more than the last leg of the series. Though I did like the idea of Alternamorphs.

[tobias2]

 First of all : #23 : The Pretender.

It's made me cried all night long... :'(

[Liz]

Uh, let's see if I have ten.  In no particular order:

#19
#29
#26
#30
#31
#52
#14
#46
#53
#22

I like #26 cause Erek plays a major role, he's always been one of my favorites.  I like his role in #53 too.  #53 was great in bringing the series to its conclusion, it put Jake through that decision he's faced so many times--can he sacrifice one/a few in order to save many?
#19 and #29 are great Cassie books, I have to say #19 is one of my favorite books, period.
#52 really shows Ax's attitudes toward humans and Andalites and how they've changed during the course of the war, which was fascinating to me.

[Starsword]

I loved 22, its Rachel's turning point to really finding her dark inner self. I also loved 17, its oatmeal! Its always the most rediculous things in life.... Also number 5, Marco discovers his mom is a controller, kind of a big plot point.