Worst animorphs books

[Elfangor555]

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.

[KingAlanI]

I'm only a few books into my reread, but #7 The Stranger and Megamorphs #1 strike me as just plain odd

[Chad32]

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.

[donut]

^ 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?

[Chad32]

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.

[donut]

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?

[Chad32]

That's what happens when different people write different books. Some authors are better than others.

[Bootlebat]

probably #28. Also am I the only one who actually likes #41?

[Chad32]

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.

[Bootlebat]

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

[Chad32]

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.

[DinosaurNothlit]

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.

[Chad32]

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.

[Bootlebat]

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?

[DinosaurNothlit]

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.