Richard's Animorphs Forum
Animorphs Section => Animorphs Forum Classic => Topic started by: Elfangor555 on July 13, 2014, 11:13:47 PM
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These are in my opinion the worst books because do not contribute the main plot and I have to say the mega morphs were really bad. If you have any other suggestions please put them in the comments.
P.S I didn't put book #54 because although lots of people do not like it K.A. applegate did a good job wrapping up a series this big with such a major plot line.
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I'm only a few books into my reread, but #7 The Stranger and Megamorphs #1 strike me as just plain odd
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Ignoring the controversy that is 54, I'd say the worst book is 31. The plot is Tom's Yeerk needs to go away with the family for four days, and is unable to return to the pool. For some very strange reason, the Yeerks have no contingency plan in case someone needs to leave town for more than three days. This seems like a huge oversight, especially since we know they have portable machines that important Yeerks can use for this kind of stuff. So plan A was beg Tom's dad not to take Tom to the funeral they needed to go to. Plan B was to kill Tom's dad.
This is a plot that should never happen. Even if Tom's Yeerk is not permitted to have a small pool for himself, why didn't someone more important have him followed, and allow him to use their machine? Why didn't they just switch Yeerks one night while everyone else was asleep? This shouldn't be a big issue. At all.
Second, I haven't read the book again but I don't think Jake saw the opportunity to rescue Tom. Given that apprently the Yeerks had written him off as dead when they left, it shouldn't be too difficult to starve the Yeerk and have Tom fake a suicide. It shouldn't raise any red flags that a newly freed involuntary host would choose to kill himself over returning to the city. I know it isn't exactly handing Tom over on a silver platter, but it's the next best thing.
This is an idiot plot if there ever was one. A plot that only continues because everyone involved acts like an idiot.
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^ that one was pretty stupid. Especially that Tom keeps trying to kill Jake's dad after they're already in the country. There's no reason to think they would immediately return to the city because of that.
I'd still have to say the Hidden is the worst book. Everything that touched the cube gained the morphing ability, ants were morphing, and the buffahuman?
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I think trying to kill him after they left was more about spite. Taking Tom's dad with him. We never know if Tom was actually looking forward to his Yeerk starving to death.
Hidden should not have been either. In its defense, though, if anyone wondered if having an animal morph a sentient being would allow it to become sentient, apparently the answer is yes. It was kind of weird that Cassie would think the Buffahuman needed saving, but the Anthuman needed to die.
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Is it odd that some of the worst books I've read and some of the best books I've read are in the same series?
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That's what happens when different people write different books. Some authors are better than others.
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probably #28. Also am I the only one who actually likes #41?
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I don't think 41 was any weirder than other books in the second half of the series, though as far as continuing or adding to the main story, we could have done without it. It was a filler book, though certainly not the only one.
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I've always wondered though what was the being at the end? In fact of all the "loose ends" that is the one I have wondered about the most
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Who knows? It apparently isn't the Ellemist, Crayak, or even the One. It's just there to explain why all that happened. Just like The One is only there to give the Anis something to do after the war is over. And possibly kill them off, for some reason.
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Also am I the only one who actually likes #41?
Nope, you're not! I get frustrated at the general sentiment of dislike for it, given that it's actually one of my favorite books in the whole series. I'd rank it in my top five, and given how much I love Animorphs as a whole, that is SAYING SOMETHING.
Yeah, it didn't add anything to the overall plot of the books. Yeah, it could have been skipped (people who make this argument forget that you can actually skip an entire series if you feel like it). But I feel like it really explored Jake's psyche, showed how incredibly messed-up his thoughts are at this stage in the war. Some of the imagery in that book is so poetic in its twistedness, and I love it.
By the way, I don't think there was a being at the end. I think the whole thing was in Jake's head. I think he just needed to 'invent' some kind of all-powerful Ellimist-esque thing to explain it all, some way to absolve him of responsibility for his own thoughts (can't really say 'actions' here). Saying it was all in Jake's head also goes some way towards fixing what I saw as the book's one major flaw; that it was so heavily weighted towards 'save your friends and screw the world.' I would have liked it better as a more grey-morality book, exploring the differences between saving the one and saving the many, but given that Jake so desperately wants to be able to save every individual person, it still makes some sense there.
Also, I was surprised to find 48 on this list, too. Most of the book was just kinda meh in my opinion, not one of the better ones, but not terrible. But, it gains points for having my favorite ending in the entire series. I LOVED the cliffhanger at the end of 48. That bittersweet moral dilemma, and the fact that Rachel has absolutely no idea what to do, was absolutely twisted and dark and beautiful.
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One thing I really like about 48 is that it shows Rachel isn't as far gone as some people like to believe. She isn't so wrapped up in the war that she wouldn't know what to do with herself if it ended. Not only did she see through the problem of accepting power from Crayak on her own, but if she was just a pure blood knight like some people believed, she wouldn't have been conflicted at all. over the power, or David.
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Also am I the only one who actually likes #41?
Nope, you're not! I get frustrated at the general sentiment of dislike for it, given that it's actually one of my favorite books in the whole series. I'd rank it in my top five, and given how much I love Animorphs as a whole, that is SAYING SOMETHING.
Yeah, it didn't add anything to the overall plot of the books. Yeah, it could have been skipped (people who make this argument forget that you can actually skip an entire series if you feel like it). But I feel like it really explored Jake's psyche, showed how incredibly messed-up his thoughts are at this stage in the war. Some of the imagery in that book is so poetic in its twistedness, and I love it.
By the way, I don't think there was a being at the end. I think the whole thing was in Jake's head. I think he just needed to 'invent' some kind of all-powerful Ellimist-esque thing to explain it all, some way to absolve him of responsibility for his own thoughts (can't really say 'actions' here). Saying it was all in Jake's head also goes some way towards fixing what I saw as the book's one major flaw; that it was so heavily weighted towards 'save your friends and screw the world.' I would have liked it better as a more grey-morality book, exploring the differences between saving the one and saving the many, but given that Jake so desperately wants to be able to save every individual person, it still makes some sense there.
Also, I was surprised to find 48 on this list, too. Most of the book was just kinda meh in my opinion, not one of the better ones, but not terrible. But, it gains points for having my favorite ending in the entire series. I LOVED the cliffhanger at the end of 48. That bittersweet moral dilemma, and the fact that Rachel has absolutely no idea what to do, was absolutely twisted and dark and beautiful.
Interesting idea, though one possible problem: in the dream or whatever it was he sees a billboard with a picture of the yeerk homeworld (which is accurate judging from the Andalite Chronicles) even though he's never been there (though I suppose Ax might have described it to him at some point). Also what would the orff signify do you think?
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Interesting idea, though one possible problem: in the dream or whatever it was he sees a billboard with a picture of the yeerk homeworld (which is accurate judging from the Andalite Chronicles) even though he's never been there (though I suppose Ax might have described it to him at some point). Also what would the orff signify do you think?
First off, even if Ax never described the Yeerk homeworld to the other Animorphs (which he very conceivably could have done), in book 4 he did mention that it has a much lower diversity of life than most planets. From even that small detail, it's pretty easy to visualize a barren, desolate world that would be at least pretty close to the reality. It's been a while since I've read 41, so I'm not sure how detailed it gets about the Yeerk homeworld, but a lot of it is easy enough to guess. Sludge pools, not much vegetation, general horribleness.
More importantly, though, in book 6, Jake receives a number of memories from an actual Yeerk. Again, I can't remember if the Yeerk homeworld is ever brought up specifically, but it's easy enough to imagine that it was. This makes even more sense to me than Ax talking about it, since Ax wouldn't know nearly as much as an actual Yeerk would.
As far as the Orff, I'm not sure they necessarily 'represent' anything. Not everything in dreams do. But, now that I'm thinking about it, there are certain traits that could be symbolic. They speak in a way that's very hard to understand, and yet they're the ones in control of many aspects of the situation Jake finds himself in. Which could represent Jake's feelings of confusion and helplessness when making decisions where he doesn't even fully understand what's going on around him ('mistaken past decisions' is a bit of a recurring theme throughout the book). Then there's the fact that they have 'see-though' skin that turns out to be a deception; again, symbolizing that not everything is what it seems and everything is always more complicated than you think it is. The weird eyes and extra legs, though, are probably just because aliens. :P
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#42 The Journey and #44 The Unexpected are the ones that I really hate.
#42 does absolutely nothing that the Magic School Bus didn't do better, and its also a recycling of a plot point that wasn't very good to begin with.
#44 The Unexpected was equally unwelcome
I'm glad to see that #48 got some mention here. I was perfectly fine with the closure we got from the David Trilogy and that book did absolutely nothing but disrupt that. I remember being excited that the book would have the Crayak, Drode, and David (3 characters I always enjoyed) and being completely floored by how terrible it was.
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I will admit the part about David was disappointing. He could have made a nice mutual villain for the Animorphs and yeerks, and have been brought back as early as 27. 26 being when Jake screws up the Howlers for Crayak.
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Oh, heh, right, we're supposed to be talking about books we don't like, rather than defending the ones we do. :-] Back on topic:
I can't believe #37 (the one where Rachel is instated as temporary leader of the Animorphs, for those who have repressed the memory of that book) hasn't been so much as mentioned yet. Of all the 'bad' Animorphs books, most of them, yeah, I can admit were bad. But, in every other case, I can still sorta kinda justify them somehow. This one, though, is just straight-up wrong. Hardly the first book to flanderize (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Flanderization) Rachel, but without doubt this is the one to butcher her character the most thoroughly. Painting her as not only stupidly bloodthirsty, but willing to sacrifice her friends for her own recklessness. Just, no. Rachel wouldn't act like that, not ever.
I'm also not a fan of #47. That's the one where they defend the Hork-bajir colony from the Yeerks (which gets compared to the Civil War for . . . reasons?). Unlike the previously mentioned book, I can at least justify (the non-historical parts) in my mind. But it's worth noting that this book is the primary reason Toby Hamee is my second-least favorite character in the whole series (but, really, she probably only loses out to Cassie because the latter had more screen-time to wear on my patience). She ruthlessly sacrifices a large portion of the last remnants of her people, for absolutely no good reason, and certainly no reason that any Hork-bajir (yanno, the ones actually getting killed for these concepts?) could possibly comprehend.
And, for the record, I'd like to point out that there are absolutely excellent reasons why Toby Hamee would be so screwed-up that she'd go and do completely psychotic things like that. She was expected to lead her people by the time she could talk, she passed her parents intellectually within months of her birth, and her only intellectual-equivalent role models have belonged to different (and, generally, far more ruthless) species than herself. It makes sense that her entire psyche is a total clusterfest. But it's a giant missed opportunity for character development, that this is never so much as hinted at, let alone explored. All the characters she ever interacts with are convinced of her leadership ability. And, why? Because she could put a grammatically correct sentence together? Jara would have been a better leader than her. I'm not even kidding.
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I'm also not a fan of #47. That's the one where they defend the Hork-bajir colony from the Yeerks (which gets compared to the Civil War for . . . reasons?). Unlike the previously mentioned book, I can at least justify (the non-historical parts) in my mind. But it's worth noting that this book is the primary reason Toby Hamee is my second-least favorite character in the whole series (but, really, she probably only loses out to Cassie because the latter had more screen-time to wear on my patience). She ruthlessly sacrifices a large portion of the last remnants of her people, for absolutely no good reason, and certainly no reason that any Hork-bajir (yanno, the ones actually getting killed for these concepts?) could possibly comprehend.
And, for the record, I'd like to point out that there are absolutely excellent reasons why Toby Hamee would be so screwed-up that she'd go and do completely psychotic things like that. She was expected to lead her people by the time she could talk, she passed her parents intellectually within months of her birth, and her only intellectual-equivalent role models have belonged to different (and, generally, far more ruthless) species than herself. It makes sense that her entire psyche is a total clusterfest. But it's a giant missed opportunity for character development, that this is never so much as hinted at, let alone explored. All the characters she ever interacts with are convinced of her leadership ability. And, why? Because she could put a grammatically correct sentence together? Jara would have been a better leader than her. I'm not even kidding.
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That may be totally down to lack of character detailing. Not only did she not get much screen time, but she was never shown to be explaining her decisions or giving her reasoning, because there never was the chance to. If the parts about the civil war were taken out (which I think just cuts the time for the main plotline to stretch out), she could have been given more development. That book was just a missed opportunity for her and the other Horks. Let's face it, they never get any development, aside from Jara and Ket's rescue (book 13).
I think the problem was ghost-writers. A seer entering the series, especially after the writing of the HBC, was a really exciting and promising concept, and one that had the potential to really mix things up. Instead, Toby's birth came at the time when ghost-writers really took over, and we got filler books when we could have had more relevant ones that would utilise that story line a lot better.
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I forgot about the one Rachel takes over. That was really bad. The first time I read through I only got about halfway through the series, and didn't think much of Rachel. The second time I realized she's one of the more complex and in depth characters, and she's a lot more intelligent than she gets credit for, until the ghost writers take over. 37 really screwed that up.
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I forget that part in 47. I don't think I read all that much of it, since I really didn't care for the civil war sections. I think I only read 37 once, but I'm pretty sure they did Rachel's character wrong.
Rachel is probably right up there with Marco in character complexity and conflict, and they really don't do her much justice.
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Anyone have book they liked as a kid but not now? I feel that way about #36.
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Not only did she not get much screen time, but she was never shown to be explaining her decisions or giving her reasoning, because there never was the chance to.
You know, Toby actually does give her reasons for her actions in 47. They're just really horrible ones. Something about 'freedom cannot be given, it must be earned.' Which is just, well, blatantly untrue. Freedom must be given, it cannot be earned. If it could, then no form of oppression could exist.
And even if her logic was sound, it would still have nothing to do with the situation at hand. Obviously, the Hork-bajir are already free (that's kinda the whole point). And THEN, even if the logic was sound AND it had something to do with anything, it STILL would have gone right over the other Horks' heads, rendering the idea pointless anyway.
You can't even really blame it on a lack of screen-time for development, either. She features pretty prominently in 23, 34, and especially 47. It's just that every author who writes her seems to have completely missed it. Heck, there's a point in 47 where Tobias asks her how she knows something, and she straight-up tells him that the trees talk to her. HOW WAS THIS NOT A HINT TO ANYBODY THAT SHE WAS BAT-S**T CRAZY?!
Anyone have book they liked as a kid but not now? I feel that way about #36.
Well, I've been working my way through Poparena's Opinionated Animorphs Book Guide, and I'd have to say that Megamorphs #2 is pretty much now ruined for me forever (thanks, Poparena), whereas it used to be one of my favorites as a kid. Of course, anything with dinosaurs in it generally makes me go completely blind to all its faults. I used to like the Land Before Time sequels, as a kid, too, so . . . yeah.
Other than that . . . well, I think I liked just about every book on the first read-through. Just the feeling of a new Animorphs book in my hands was a wonderful thing. *reminisces* So, yeah, any book I don't like now, it's generally a pretty safe bet that I did like it as a kid. Except possibly the ending of the series (but I doubt I'm alone on that). And maybe one or two Cassie books that I had vague reservations about. Not really 'dislike' but just a general sense of 'well that was a bit silly.'
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Not only did she not get much screen time, but she was never shown to be explaining her decisions or giving her reasoning, because there never was the chance to.
You know, Toby actually does give her reasons for her actions in 47. They're just really horrible ones. Something about 'freedom cannot be given, it must be earned.' Which is just, well, blatantly untrue. Freedom must be given, it cannot be earned. If it could, then no form of oppression could exist.
And even if her logic was sound, it would still have nothing to do with the situation at hand. Obviously, the Hork-bajir are already free (that's kinda the whole point). And THEN, even if the logic was sound AND it had something to do with anything, it STILL would have gone right over the other Horks' heads, rendering the idea pointless anyway.
You can't even really blame it on a lack of screen-time for development, either. She features pretty prominently in 23, 34, and especially 47. It's just that every author who writes her seems to have completely missed it. Heck, there's a point in 47 where Tobias asks her how she knows something, and she straight-up tells him that the trees talk to her. HOW WAS THIS NOT A HINT TO ANYBODY THAT SHE WAS BAT-S**T CRAZY?!
Yeah, I actually agree with that first point. Freedom shouldn't be earned. Forgot that part. =P I suppose what she was getting at was that the Hork-Bajir didn't free themselves or find themselves a place to live - it was all done for them! She probably thinks that, for once, they should do something for themselves. I agree that it's not good reasoning though, because it's not the Horkies fault that they're in such a bad situation, so they should have done whatever sustained them best, which in that case was probably to run and get a new place to hide.
You could say she was being quite selfish, because the other Horks wouldn't understand what her decisions rested on, so it wasn't so much down to a vote but the loyalty of the Horks towards her. But then, we didn't get a chance to hear of any of the other Horks decisions, because the author never really wrote about it - maybe they talked to Toby beforehand and said that they would prefer to fight for their homes over running, and she was their mouthpiece.
I wouldn't say that she features prominently in any of those books. She played a role in a sub-plot in 23, only really reporting to the Animorphs at the beginning and making a couple of other minor appearances later. In 34, she's just... there, and contributes little. In 47, half of the book is filler about the civil war, so even if her role is prominent, it's half a book. I don't think she ever had a real prominent role, and that's a real shame.
No character is perfect, and maybe Toby was quite cold and reckless compared to other Horks (who, let's face it, are too sweethearted to really be cold and reckless), but I don't think we saw her enough to know what her consistent characteristics were, because the ghost-writers didn't seem to know how to deal with her. Remember how Rachel's character was often compromised by them? I think it's the same thing here.
Oh, and talking to trees is definitely a sign of craziness =P
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Anyone have book they liked as a kid but not now? I feel that way about #36.
I thought the ending of book 9, when Cassie sprayed V3 with skunk musk, was hilarious when I first read it. Though later I realized how bad it was that V3 suffered so much villain decay that he's be made the butt of a joke. This was the guy that practically made them crap their pants in the first two book. He was in almost every one of the earlier books, and it all culminates into them tricking him with grape juice instead of tomato juice and laughing at him afterwards.
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To elaborate I thought the whole thing with the Nartec was cool as a kid but now it just seems dumb. Like for one thing how can radioactive rocks turn humans into fish people? And if they are that radioactive why don't the Animorphs get radiation poisoning from being there?
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It would have been cool if there was some alien species deep under the sea that the animorphs found. There's so much stuff down there that looks alien that I believe an actual sentient alien species could be down there without looking out of place. Now that would have made an interesting book, especially if they had very little knowledge that Humans even existed.
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Anyone have book they liked as a kid but not now? I feel that way about #36.
I thought the ending of book 9, when Cassie sprayed V3 with skunk musk, was hilarious when I first read it. Though later I realized how bad it was that V3 suffered so much villain decay that he's be made the butt of a joke. This was the guy that practically made them crap their pants in the first two book. He was in almost every one of the earlier books, and it all culminates into them tricking him with grape juice instead of tomato juice and laughing at him afterwards.
Yeah, that's really how I thought about it. The first time I thought it was great. I reread it and all I could think is why doesn't the Visser doesn't kill them anyway?
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But then, we didn't get a chance to hear of any of the other Horks decisions, because the author never really wrote about it - maybe they talked to Toby beforehand and said that they would prefer to fight for their homes over running, and she was their mouthpiece.
That's not a bad point there. I can pretty easily picture Jara or Ket deciding to take a stand and fight rather than running (perhaps not completely understanding that they'd need to run away in the end, anyway), and I'm sure other Hork-bajir in the colony may have felt the same way. So, yeah, maybe we can chalk that up to something that happened off-screen.
I wouldn't say that she features prominently in any of those books. She played a role in a sub-plot in 23, only really reporting to the Animorphs at the beginning and making a couple of other minor appearances later. In 34, she's just... there, and contributes little. In 47, half of the book is filler about the civil war, so even if her role is prominent, it's half a book. I don't think she ever had a real prominent role, and that's a real shame.
That's not really fair, though, because the fault lies in how those books were written. I will give #23 a pass, because it had enough of a complex series of plots that anything about the Hork-bajir was going to get squeezed out, at least to some degree (yet, of the three, #23 is probably one of the better character-development books for Toby). In #34 and #47 though? Toby should have had a huge role in #34 (hell, she should have been the one possessed by Aldrea, the whole "Aldrea picked somebody similar to her" thing was bullcrap considering that Cassie and Aldrea could not have been more different), and the only reason Toby didn't get fleshed out more was because she was keeping to herself that whole book. Again, like I said, it was simply how the book was written, keeping Toby quiet, when it could easily have developed her character to a far greater degree. Same with #47, just, ugh, the Civil War chapters did not need to be there at all.
Oh, hey! On the subject of books we don't like! #34!
I actually rather liked the general concept for #34, but I think the problem lies in where the book falls in the narration order. Cassie, being the narrator, was contractually bound to be the one who ended up getting possessed. And, since gender-bending was probably out of the question, it had to be Aldrea who possessed her. *sigh* Which is where we have the problem. Seriously, Dak would have been a MUCH better fit for Cassie. Two people who wanted desperately to keep to a non-violent lifestyle, while being forced into a war. Heckuva lot better than trying to shoehorn pacifist Cassie into being anything like the ruthless Aldrea.
Ideally, though, I'd have loved to see Dak and Jake be the co-stars in this book. Both of them shoved into a position of leadership in a war they'd never asked for, and both of them just doing the best they could. I would have loved to see them compare their own lives to one another.
*sigh* I guess I don't like #34 for much the same reason I don't like #47. Missed opportunities. :-\
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34 was pretty weird. They probably could have made it a jake book, where Dak possessed him. Of course it would have been nice to just let Toby narrate the book, and at the end she could stay with the new rebellion like she should have. Instead she gets kidnapped by the group to go back to earth, and at the end of the series she doesn't even take her people back to her planet. She somehow gets a position in congress, and her people are in Yellowstone.
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But then, we didn't get a chance to hear of any of the other Horks decisions, because the author never really wrote about it - maybe they talked to Toby beforehand and said that they would prefer to fight for their homes over running, and she was their mouthpiece.
That's not a bad point there. I can pretty easily picture Jara or Ket deciding to take a stand and fight rather than running (perhaps not completely understanding that they'd need to run away in the end, anyway), and I'm sure other Hork-bajir in the colony may have felt the same way. So, yeah, maybe we can chalk that up to something that happened off-screen.
I imagine the phrase "Free or dead" was uttered a lot. Toby probably got fed up of that. =P
Oh, hey! On the subject of books we don't like! #34!
I actually rather liked the general concept for #34, but I think the problem lies in where the book falls in the narration order. Cassie, being the narrator, was contractually bound to be the one who ended up getting possessed. And, since gender-bending was probably out of the question, it had to be Aldrea who possessed her. *sigh* Which is where we have the problem. Seriously, Dak would have been a MUCH better fit for Cassie. Two people who wanted desperately to keep to a non-violent lifestyle, while being forced into a war. Heckuva lot better than trying to shoehorn pacifist Cassie into being anything like the ruthless Aldrea.
Ideally, though, I'd have loved to see Dak and Jake be the co-stars in this book. Both of them shoved into a position of leadership in a war they'd never asked for, and both of them just doing the best they could. I would have loved to see them compare their own lives to one another.
*sigh* I guess I don't like #34 for much the same reason I don't like #47. Missed opportunities. :-\
Agreed! It did seem strange that Cassie was picked, but obviously, for the reasons you stated, it had to be her. It would have been amazing to bring Dak in instead, not only for the relationship to Jake (I imagine that if it was a Jake book, Dak would have been used instead, and it probably would have been better), but also because Toby could probably relate much better and would do a little more than sit in the background like a prop.
Also, another problem with this book is that fact that the whole plotline is never mentioned again! I put that down, again, to ghost-writers who didn't quite know what to do with some things.
34 was pretty weird. They probably could have made it a jake book, where Dak possessed him. Of course it would have been nice to just let Toby narrate the book, and at the end she could stay with the new rebellion like she should have. Instead she gets kidnapped by the group to go back to earth, and at the end of the series she doesn't even take her people back to her planet. She somehow gets a position in congress, and her people are in Yellowstone.
A Toby narrated book would probably do a good job of explaining a lot of things. There's a good fic on FanFiction.net that does exactly that - Earth Diary of Toby Hamee.
All in all, I don't think we can accurately judge Toby's character, because her actions were severely limited and most of it came at a time when the series was written by inconsistent ghost-writers. Sad, really.
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There was wasted potential with all the non Animorphs groups. I realize that the series is called Animorphs, and they are the main characters, but why come up with interesting groups like the Chee, YPM, and Free Horks and not do much with them?
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Why hasn't anybody mentioned the book with Rachel morphing starfish and splitting into two halves.... That one was plain stupid.
Most of the bad books were written by the ghost writers... And one of the biggest failures was polarizing Rachel. She was a great character. In 53-54, when KA took over again, she was back to being a logical person. Yeah she was still addicted to battles and violence at that point, but she executed Jake's plan, not because she wanted to kill, but because she understood that it had to be done, and Cassie and Tobias must not get in the way. She didn't question Jake's betrayal, and she fought knowing she would die, and at the end the question she asked the Ellimist was if she made a difference. I think the ghost writer books really didn't do her justice. The one with her taking over as leader... the one with her dreaming about defying Jake... All really dumb.
The return of the Helmacrons and David were pretty bad too. Oh did anyone remember the cover of Rachel morphing to super Rachel? Worst cover in the series - and I'm counting the one with Cassie morphing Yeerk and Tobias morphing Taxxon here...
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That is definitely one of the weird books. The main reason I don't put books like this, Buffahuman, and Nartec in the same league as 31, is that there's really no reason to not have a protocol for controllers needing to travel. Even if they don't travel often, what if Jake's parents scrounged up enough money to take everyone on a cruise or some other exotic vacation? I know I've done that. To just have no plan at all breaks willing suspension of believe for me more than twin Rachels, or mutated humans, or animals gaining the morphing ability.
I'm pretty sure the dream of her defyign Jake was Crayak/Drode messing with her. That has an excuse.