A Stitch In Time by Andrew J. Robinson (the actor who played Garak for all seven seasons of Deep Space 9).

Quick synopsis: Through a letter written to his friend Dr. Bashir, Garak tells the story of his life from childhood until after the fall of his planet.

Brief opinion: (Review of the text version of the book here: link.) Garak himself (or at least the actor who plays him) telling you the story of his life and the history of the Cardassian planet. What could be better!

Plot: Garak's life story from long before Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's story started until after the series ended. Through that we got a lot of worldbuilding about Cardassians and other things in the ST/DS9 world.

Writing/editing: N/A (The narration was so good though!)

What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: Loved every single bit of the story, and Robinson narrating it made it even better. What a wonderful experience this whole audiobook was!

The only thing I didn't like was the title. Garak is a tailor and a spy, the title is just too unsubtle.

Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️- Loved. I couldn't have loved this more.

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DNF #10: Bad Bunny (The Heroic Bunny Saga #2) by Richard J. Hansen. While I enjoyed the first book, I expected this second one to have more things happening (since Tisk the bunny was now out of the dungeon), but it was mostly just her thinking about things. Also the editing was much worse in this book. DNF

The Attack (Animorphs #26) by K.A. Applegate.

Quick synopsis: Through hand-wavey magic, the Animorphs are taken to another planet and have to fight a deadly alien race.

Brief opinion: Taking a break between books really worked out. I actually read the morphing sequences (usually I skip them, because every book they morph multiple times and it's extensively descried) and enjoyed it. I liked the whole story, even if I remembered the twist about the Howlers from my previous reading.

How does this opinion compare to my original review in 2019: Back then I said "If every book in the series were like this one, Animorphs would be the most amazing series ever.". While today I think the whole series is pretty amazing, I agree with past-me saying this book was probably written by Michael Grant. It has his wonderful fingerprints all over it.

Plot: In this world, there are aliens so powerful they're basically gods. A "good guy alien god" and a "bad guy alien god" are fighting, and they use the Animorphs and a deadly alien race (the Howlers) to try to settle things.

The battle seems impossible. These Howlers were grown in a lab, created to wipe out other whole planets of people. They have a collective racial memory, and the only thing they want to do is kill.

When Jake morphs into a Howler, he learns the truth. The whole Howler race is children (they only live three years and don't have a mature/adult stage). The Howlers think killing things is fun, and they think the people being killed are having fun as well.

The Animorphs have to figure out how to deal with the deadly-yet-innocent Howlers.

Writing/editing: Very good!

What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: My favorite books are these "grey" ones. The whole series is grey, nothing is black and white, but some books are even more grey than others. This was an outstanding one.

Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️- Loved.

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Dungeon Bunny by Richard J. Hansen.

Quick synopsis: Take a bunny. A real bunny, just the same as any bunny on Earth and put it into a D&D-style dungeon. Through the course of the story, she learns to think, learns what words are, and slowly learns magic as well.

Brief opinion: I never fell asleep more often during a book than I did this one, yet I still enjoyed it. Every time I started reading, I fell asleep. I ran my Kindle's battery down so low because it stayed on even after I fell asleep, yet I still liked this story. So weird!

Plot: A normal, real bunny. She hops, she eats, she watches for predators, she sleeps. Eventually, slowly, she learns to think. First she has one thought, then she has more. She spends a lot of time thinking about thinking (and having realistic worries, like if she thinks too many thoughts, will she run out of room in her brain?).

Eventually she notices the two-legs (adventurers) communicate by speaking, and she really really wants to learn to do that, but bunny mouths aren't made for talking.

She slowly explores her home (one cave in the dungeon), and then further down some of the dungeon tunnels.

While following some adventurers, she overhears them talking about magic, and puts much time and effort into trying to learn it herself.

The story's climax is an encounter which endangers the entire dungeon.

Writing/editing: In the beginning of the book the editing was okay. There were some issues, some pretty big (like a period used instead of a comma), but not too many. As the book continued, the errors got way more frequent and were almost all big ones.

What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: I'd really like to know why this book kept putting me to sleep, especially since I liked it.

Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Liked. On to book 2!

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The Exposed (Animorphs #27) by K.A. Applegate.

Quick synopsis: Animorphs under the sea (again), this time deeper than most living things can survive.

Brief opinion: Ho-hum. Mostly a filler episode, with another visit from an alien so advanced it might as well be a god.

How does this opinion compare to my original review in 2019: Overall I liked it then, but this time I was more meh about it.

Plot: The Chee (dog-like androids) all get turned off. The Animorphs have to somehow acquire morphs that can survive in the deep ocean (giant squid), but then also have to fight both a god-like alien and the Yeerks down there. Spoiler: The Animorphs win.

Writing/editing: Fine.

What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: I really don't like the god-like aliens.

Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Okay. Really middle of the road. Just an action-adventure filler episode.

I was so sure I'd like this book, I had the review post set up as a finished book so I could fill in for each individual story as I went. The Stand was one of my most favorite books ever.

The Stand was published in 1978. I guess horror has changed a lot since then. King's work was more psychological horror. These stories were more graphic violence, gore, and nothing subtle at all. A complete and total mismatch for what I like to read.

If you like descriptions of gore, torture, graphic violence, rape, and killing animals in horrible ways, then this collection of short stories might be for you.

I read the first six and a half of the 34 stories. Individual reviews of them:

Room 24 by Caroline Kepnes. Wow I hated this one so much. A cop, who is a virgin, hates women. But also wants them. He becomes obsessed with a woman in an abusive relationship, fantasizes about having sex with bullet holes in her, kills her husband and the next door neighbor (an elderly woman). Then the abused wife and her infant baby are killed by the superflu. ⭐️ - Hated. I'd give this one zero if that were a real rating.

The Tripps by Wrath James White. Well I didn't hate this one quite as much as the first story, but there was still way too much violence and graphic gore for me. The story was about what happened when the superflu broke out in the projects of some city. Lots of murder, violence (sexual and otherwise), and gore. ⭐️⭐️ - Disliked.

Bright Light City by Meg Gardiner. The first one I liked! And I liked it a lot! Set in Las Vegas as the superflu reaches its worst times, a woman is trapped in Vegas with a young girl she doesn't know and isn't related to. The two have to survive together. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️- Loved

Every Dog Has Its Day by Bryan Smith. Superflu hits and four teenagers are (so far) still alive. Three of the four were very unpleasant characters and the final one wasn't much better. Didn't like the story at all. ⭐️⭐️ - Disliked

Lockdown by Bev Vincent. An island off the coast of Maine has only a dozen or so residents. Cut off as they are, they're safe from the superflu... but not from the dreams of Mother Abigail and the Dark Man. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Okay

In A Pig’s Eye by Joe R. Lansdale. Started out okay, turned into torture and cannibalism. ⭐️⭐️ - Disliked.

Lenora by Jonathan Janz. From another review: "Little PSA that if awful things happening to animals bothers you this story is the reason trigger warnings exist." ⭐️ - Hated.

I DNFed Lenora and dropped the book at this point. It's just not for me.

DNF #7: Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb. I loved the first book so very much, but this second one seemed completely different. In the first book, Fitz had a friend named Molly. Just a friend, not a girlfriend. By the end of the book he realized he might have had more feelings than friendship for her, but he saw her leaving town with a man and he was A-OK with her choosing someone else. In this book, he was obsessed with loving and wanting her. Seriously, obsessed. Like he stalked her nonstop, stole items of her clothing so he could smell them.

DNFed about a third of the way into the book, and nearly all that time was just Fitz thinking about Molly. He couldn't live without her, his life had no purpose without her, he was going to give up his sworn duty to be with her...

DNF #8: Operation Bounce House by Matt Dinniman. I've read and listened to the DCC books so many times, I never thought I could DNF anything else Dinniman wrote. But here we are.

I need to be able to connect to characters to enjoy a book. It was only about 10% into the book that I realized Oliver, the main character of the story, is 25 years old. Up until this point I had thought he was 12. (Their farm-robot shocks Oliver whenever he curses or breaks other rules...)

DNFed about 15%. I can't name one trait about Oliver (other than that he doesn't like being shocked when he curses). I can barely name any other character in the story, let alone any traits for them. Plus, even though it took 300+ years for this group of settlers to move from Earth to the new planet (generations!), somehow some Earth media references were still being used (a robot was named RogerRoger, which is also the name of a droid in Star Wars...).

This Inevitable Ruin (Dungeon Crawler Carl #7) by Matt Dinniman. I'm not sure if this is listen #3 or #4, I just keep starting the series over once I finish it. The narrator, Jeff Hays, makes this such an experience! Original review here.

DNF #6: Operation Bounce House by Matt Dinniman. I don't usually like audiobooks at all, I'd rather read. But since this is by Dinniman, same author as the DCC series, I preordered the audiobook.

As soon as I started it, I hated it. Different narrator, and he was doing an accent that was so hard to follow. I returned the audiobook and I'm going to read the text version instead.

In progress: With the credit from returning Operation Bounce House, I got A Stitch In Time, written and narrated by Andrew J. Robinson (the actor who played Garak for all seven seasons of Deep Space 9). I loved the text version of the story, but having it read by "Garak" himself makes it even better!

Assassin's Apprentice (The Farseer Trilogy #1) by Robin Hobb.

Quick synopsis: Set in a fantasy world, a royal bastard with no name (called Boy for much of the book and Fitz, which means bastard, for the rest) trains to be a spy/assassin. He starts at age 5, and is 14 when the book ends. (Me? Have a thing for stories about child soldiers? Shocking! Just don't look at that stack of Animorph books over there...)

Brief opinion: This is the best book I've read in a long, long time. Hours flew by as I read!

Plot: Set in a fantasy medieval world with just a touch of magic (Skill/Wit), a prince's bastard son is left at a local royal outpost by his birth father. The boy, only five years old, is taken in by the stablemaster and trained to work with horses and dogs.

As "Boy" grows older, he gains other teachers, eventually including Chade (the king's spymaster/assassin).

Boy, soon to be "named" Fitz ("bastard"), has a rough life in the castle. He's hated and is considered a threat (because if he had been born in wedlock, he'd be in line for the throne). Much of the story is spent on him growing up, learning, and training. And lots of interactions with animals!

The serious conflict in the book happens as a group travels off to another nation to bring the eldest prince/king-to-be's wife to him. Those who hated him when he was younger strike against him, poisoning him both literally and attempting to do so "socially" as well. (And remember, he's just 14 years old at this point, trying to survive against adults with all the power in the world.)

Writing/editing: Other than an occasional issue with semicolons (they were sometimes used as commas), everything was great. Writing and editing both were outstanding.

What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: My biggest issue in this book is the egregious number of pages dedicated to advertising other books. A full quarter of the book was spent on excerpts from other books! I thought I had more than three hours of reading left!

Other than that issue, I loved everything. Everything. From first page to last. All the characters, all the events, all the worldbuilding. Everything.

Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️- Loved. I wish I had special sparkly stars or something to use for this one.

I hit the halfway point of the Animorphs series and need a break from it. There's so much filler and padding, I wish I could get a tighter version of the series.

Hopefully I'll get back to the second half of it after a few other books.



The Extreme by K.A. Applegate (Jeffrey Zeuhlke).

Quick synopsis: For episode-of-the-week reasons, the Animorphs end up in the Arctic Circle. This is an issue since they can't morph any clothing other than tight fitting things (like bike shorts).

Brief opinion: The first of the ghostwritten books, and I was surprised at how much I liked the writing.

How does this opinion compare to my original review in 2018: Back then I wrote "This book felt like the author cared." and that's true. It felt like it was written with more care than the previous books. Kudos, Jeffrey Zeuhlke!

Plot: The kids (who probably have all had a birthday by this point, so they should be 14 instead of 13) end up in the Arctic. New aliens are after them (ho hum) and they have to get some cold weather morphs.

Writing/editing: Quite good!

What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: I was surprised at how much more I enjoyed the writing in this one. Also, the descriptions of how cold they were were quite realistic and believable.

Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Liked

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DNF #: Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid. I liked the show (other than that it had way too much graphic sex for me), so I figured I'd love the book. Nope. The sex was just as graphic, but lasted so much longer since I was reading it. Loved the characters, liked the story, just too much sex for my tastes. Ah well, just not the book for me.

The Hork-Bajir Chronicles by K.A. Applegate.

Quick synopsis: In one of the early books it was stated that 100% of the Hork-Bajir were enslaved/Controllers. This book tells the story of how they got there.

Brief opinion: By mistake I saw my 2018 review before I read this one. I loved it then, so even though I was bored with it this time, I stuck with it thinking it would get good. I wish I had DNFed it. It wasn't bad, I was just bored from start to finish.

How does this opinion compare to my original review in 2018: Back then I said "This was one of the best books in the series. I really disturbingly realistic look at war, especially hopeless ones." I wish I had felt that way this time. Since we knew the outcome of the story (the Hork-Bajir lost), it felt kind of pointless.

Plot: A young Andalite girl and a special (way smarter than average, a "seer") Hork-Bajir boy try to keep the Yeerks from taking over the planet.

Writing/editing: This was one of the books written by Michael Grant (Applegate's husband) and it showed. The writing was good, even if the story didn't work well for me.

What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: The only thing that really interested me was the few chapters from the Yeerk's POV. Their first time getting a large supply of hosts. Their first chance to make ships and tools and weapons. The first time most of their population got to see. (I loved the description of them being able to see for the first time.)

Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Okay.

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The Solution by K.A. Applegate.

Quick synopsis: The end of the David trilogy, and the end of David (sort of).

Brief opinion: I've been reviewing these books as I finish them, but somehow I missed this one. I read The Hork-Bajir Chronicles and The Pretender since reading the Solution, so it's all blurred together now. I think I liked it a lot?

How does this opinion compare to my original review in 2018: In 2018 I had a couple issues, but overall liked the book a lot. About the same as my 2026 reading.

Plot: David (psychopath kid with the power to morph) is now trying to kill off the Animorphs. While it would make sense to kill him, the kids found a "better" way to deal with him (which was way more horrific to adult-reader me: They trapped him in a rat morph and dropped him on an island with no people on it, only other rats).

Writing/editing: About the same as all the other books in the series.

What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: The written out sound effects never stop bothering me. "Hhhrrrreeeyyaaahhhh!" "Hhhrrrreeee-uh!", "Deedly-deeedly-deedly!", "HhhrrrEEEEE-uh! Hrrreee-YAH!", etc.

Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ½ - Liked

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The Pretender by K.A. Applegate.

Quick synopsis: Tobias angsts.

Brief opinion: I know Tobias is a fan favorite, and I know he certainly has reason to angst, but it just didn't work for me in this book.

How does this opinion compare to my original review in 2018: Back then I had said "The main plot in this book alternated between boring and bad." and I agree. Mostly I was bored, occasionally I was annoyed with the plot.

Plot: In an earlier book, we learned that Tobias's father just happened to be the alien who gave the kids the power to morph animals. In this book, a lawyer (who just happened to be a Controller) found that letter and tracked Tobias down. The Controller also, of course, let Visser Three know the alien has a son.

While that trap is being laid, the Animorphs attack a roadside zoo for reasons.

Writing/editing: Both were fine.

What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: Neither A Plot nor B Plot worked for me. I hope the next book is better.

Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: ⭐️⭐️ - Disliked.

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DNF #4: The Suspicion by K.A. Applegate. I simply refuse to reread any of the Helmacron books. (Helmacron are inch tall aliens. All of the books about them are supposed to be funny, but come off as stupid as hell to me.)

In the Time of Dinosaurs (Megamorphs 2) by K.A. Applegate.

Quick synopsis: As the book's title implies, the Animorphs go back in time and encounter dinosaurs. They also meet the two alien races who were living on Earth at the same time...

Brief opinion: A lot less dumb than this sounds. I liked the dinosaur part, though I wish Applegate hadn't introduced two new alien races which are never mentioned again. (Seriously, in the very next book Cassie lists the intelligent alien races they've met, and these two aren't included on the list!)

How does this opinion compare to my original review in 2018: I actually DNFed this one back then for being "all action". To be fair, that's always a valid criticism of these books. I actually liked Dinosaurs this time though.

Plot: For unimportant (and unbelievable) reasons, the kids go back 65 million years. They quickly learn how hard it is to survive in that time.

About halfway into the book they meet first one alien race and then another. The two alien groups are at war over possession of the Earth. The kids help the "good guy" aliens... and then betray them and take a direct hand in wiping out both groups.

Writing/editing: Both were good.

What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: On one hand, introducing two new alien races that will never be mentioned again is annoying. On the other, the outcome of meeting them was enjoyable to read. (Which sounds awful to say. I think this is the first time the kids killed large groups of intelligent beings.)

Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ½ - Liked it a lot.

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The Departure by K.A. Applegate.

Quick synopsis: Cassie, the most animal-loving, peaceful of the Animorphs, finally breaks. She quits the group, and in her emotional state, ends up betraying them all to the Yeerks...

Brief opinion: Unfortunately this book was much better on the first reading than on this second one. It was far from bad, but I didn't get the emotional jolt that I did the first time, since this was the point I fell in complete love with the series.

How does this opinion compare to my original review in 2018: Back then I said "Not only the best book of the series, but the best book I've read in a while!" and other glowing things. I understand my adoring review I wrote back then, but since I already knew how "grey" (not black/white) this series is, this book didn't hit me anywhere near as hard.

Plot: In a battle with Controllers (beings enslaved by Yeerks in their heads), Cassie may have missed the order to stop attacking and retreat, and so she may have unnecessarily killed a Hork-Bajir. That's the end for her. She values all life, and she might have taken one unnecessarily.

She breaks, and so she quits the Animorphs. (One thing I love about these books is we're never told "she breaks" or "his PTSD was especially bad today", we just see it and you have to put the pieces together yourself.)

She has a chance meeting with a very young girl in the woods, a girl who is a Controller. The two argue and then talk about lots of stuff. The Yeerk, Aftran 942, challenges Cassie on a lot of things. Finally she offers to leave the little girl and never infest another unwilling host again if Cassie will do the same: Doom herself to a short life being blind and unable to do anything.

After much struggle with herself, Cassie agrees. She morphs a caterpillar and stays in the form for more than two hours, trapping herself as it forever.

When the caterpillar becomes a butterfly, Cassie's morph time is reset, so she can morph back to human.

The whole story uncharacteristically ends on a positive note, with Jake having hope for the chance of peace in the future.

Writing/editing: Both were good.

What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: I LOVED getting to see the Yeerks' side of things. Comparing what they do (enslaving bodies) to what humans do (killing and eating other animals). The whole discussion about how necessary it is for Yeerks to do that (without a host they're blind, helpless slugs trapped in a pool of water).

The only thing I didn't like (to put it mildly) was the ending. Cassie "killed herself" (trapped herself in a bug morph), but in the end was saved. Fake-out deaths of main characters is such an unacceptable thing for stories to do.

Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️- Loved.

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The Discovery by K.A. Applegate.

Quick synopsis: The first book of the beloved-by-fans David trilogy. A random kid just happens to find the artifact (a glowing blue box) that grants morphing powers. The Animorphs have to make the hard decision about bringing in a new member or not.

Brief opinion: Knowing how this trilogy ends, it's a little harder (and a lot less enjoyable) reading it a second time.

How does this opinion compare to my original review in 2018: I'm surprised to see I rated this one "Disliked" and said: "Back to "blah" books, but at least maybe there's a glimpse of interesting things ahead." I agree with my complaints at the time (a lot of the set-up is really unbelievable and there were too many fights/action scenes), but those issues are mainstays of this series and I guess I'm just trying to roll with them this time.

Plot: Though it's hard to see on the surface, David is a troubled boy. His father is a "spy" (he works at the NSA), and so he has to move every couple years as his father gets reassigned. David named his cat Megadeth and his snake (a pet cobra...) Spawn.

By complete chance, he finds the "morphing cube", the artifact the Animorphs hid in the construction lot after they used it themselves. Despite being warned by the Animorphs, David posts online about it, so an army of bad guys shows up at his door, leading to a fight in his bedroom between way more animals and aliens than should be able to fit.

After much discussion, the Animorphs decide to make David one of them. Right off the bat, there are signs the kid might be a psychopath...

Writing/editing: Like all of the books, there were some small editing issues. For example, ... Huh. I was going to say that "Sheetrock" was capitalized for some reason, but that's actually a brand name so it's correct. Today I learned.

What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: The book ended in the middle of an action scene on "To be continued". I never like that, but in this case it's understandable.

I was uncomfortable reading all of the hints at issues with David, since I know how this all ends.

Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Liked

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The Threat by K.A. Applegate.

Quick synopsis: While trying to save the planet (the leaders of a bunch of countries are meeting with the US president in the Animorphs' hometown), they also have to deal with the psychopath David.

Brief opinion: It would be easy for an author to handle David poorly (a 13 year old boy who is A-OK with hurting animals and killing people), but Applegate really pulls it off. I never felt he was unrealistic. The whole plot about the president and other heads of state, on the other hand...

How does this opinion compare to my original review in 2018: From my 2018 review: "Happily, this book addressed a number of the logic issues from the previous book, but more than that, it's really setting up a big future conflict, and that's pretty darned cool." Understatement, past-me! The next book is going to be wild.

Plot: The second of the David Trilogy, the kids are continuing to try to figure out how to save the heads of all the other major nations... while also trying to figure out if David is a traitor and a killer or not.

Writing/editing: Both were mostly fine.

What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: David is so creepy (and yet so almost normal). He's a disturbing character to adult-reader me, I wonder how in the world kids reacted to him.

I really, really hate "To be continued..." especially when it comes right after Jake getting his throat ripped out by a lion.

Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️- Loved

The Warning by K.A. Applegate.

Quick synopsis: The Animorphs invade the "AOL" (WWA, Web Access America) headquarters. In their animal forms, they mop the carpeted floor... Also Jake deals with the stress of leadership. And of nearly dying.

Brief opinion: The AOL plotline was so bad, but the Jake plotline was so good. The bad parts of these books are getting hard to overlook...

How does this opinion compare to my original review in 2018: I had mentioned how this is the darkest book so far (agreed!) and that I liked Jake's struggle of morality during war (agreed on this one too!).

Plot: On a whim, one of the kids does a web search for "yeerks" and is surprised to find a whole website with a chatroom. They decide to go break into the WWA (AOL) headquarters so they can get the real life names of those people in the chatroom.

Because, unlike every other thing that happened in these 16 books so far, the HQ isn't located in their hometown, they need to take a plane. They board as flies, and Jake ends up getting swatted. He's seconds from dying (his guts outside his body long enough to dry out), but they get him into the plane's bathroom so he can demorph (which heals them).

They travel through the city and tag along with a tour group going into the AOL headquarters. Needing a distraction, they morph into their combat forms (tiger, bear, wolf) and mop the carpeted floor...

They get their information and end up having to confront the multi-billionaire owner of AOL.

Writing/editing: Both were fine.

What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: I really, really liked Jake's struggle with leadership. He's a 13 year old kid, same as the others, but the decisions and plans are his alone. He struggled with if it's possible to be both good and to win a war.

I liked seeing that Jake started making the hard decisions in the right way -- save one person whose name they know vs making progress in their war. It would have been much easier to save that one person.

On a small note, this is probably just an ebook issue, but they use pointy brackets for thought speech. Sometimes a line break makes the closing pointy bracket break away from the last piece of punctuation, and so it end up on a different line. The closing pointy bracket should be "hooked" to whatever the final character in the enclosed text is.

Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Liked. If the book had been just the Jake storyline, I would have given it five stars. The AOL plot was just so stupid though...

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The Underground by K.A. Applegate.

Quick synopsis: The Animorphs discover that oatmeal (maple and ginger flavored instant oatmeal, to be exact) is a drug for the Yeerks -- if they eat it, they go insane for the rest of their life. The kids try to take advantage of that fact.

Brief opinion: Would you believe it wasn't bad at all? The oatmeal thing was stupid, but if you look at it as a stand-in for biological weapons, that opens interesting discussions.

How does this opinion compare to my original review in 2018: Back then I said "this was one of the most enjoyable books in the series so far". I wouldn't go quite that far this time, but I did like it.

Plot: Rachel saves a man who seems to be trying to kill himself (but it was just the oatmeal-mad Yeerk in his brain), and through him she learns about the power of maple and ginger flavored instant oatmeal.

To take advantage of that knowledge, the kids sneak into the Yeerk pool (the stronghold, most defended place the Yeerks have) to try to figure out how to poison them with the oatmeal.

Of course things go wrong, big fights, kids nearly die repeatedly, same as every book.

Writing/editing: Both were fine.

What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: Rachel is the most aggressive, least thoughtful/planning of these 13 year old kids, so it's understandable that she can make the worst decisions. Still, it's often frustrating to read about.

Also Visser Three (the big bad guy of the book series) is such a laughably bad villain.

Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Liked.

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The Decision by K.A. Applegate.

Quick synopsis: In this series so far, Ax has been used for nothing but humor. It's time to get our alien boy some angst and pain.

Brief opinion: I haven't really liked Ax much until this point (the book's humor doesn't work for me at all), but I really enjoyed him getting a more serious treatment.

How does this opinion compare to my original review in 2018: In 2018 I was reading a scanned version online, and this book was unreadable so I had no opinion on it.

Plot: The second-in-command of the U.S. Secret Service is in the hospital. For some reason the Yeerks don't want to just put a slug in his head, they want Visser Three to acquire him so he can morph him instead. The Animorphs want to acquire him as well, so they morph mosquitoes so they can sneak in and get his blood to acquire his DNA from.

Backstory: In some early book it was explained that when someone morphs into a smaller form, their excess mass ends up in Z-space. Spaceships also travel through Z-space. There's a very very slight chance that a ship could hit that mass just floating there.

The Animorphs mass in Z-space is hit by an Andalite military spaceship, causing the kids to vanish from the real world and end up on the ship. Ax, an Andalite, is finally reunited with his people. Also, Andalites who outrank him are on the ship, so he basically abandons the Animorphs and goes back to his people.

It wouldn't be an Animorphs book without a big action scene, but at least in this case it was unlike all the previous books. There's a war going on on an alien planet, and the kids end up helping the Andalites win over the Yeerks.

Writing/editing: Both were good.

What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: It was really nice to see more of Ax than just being the butt of the same joke that's been used for the previous 17 books.

There was also an odd, interesting thing in this book: Marco (a 13 year old kid from the 90s) referenced the Vietnam War (about how, visually, you couldn't tell one side from the other: North vs South Vietnamese people). There's no way a kid would know that much about the Vietnam War, so thought in the fandom was that Applegate dropped that little bit in for adult readers.

Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️- Loved. This is the first book in a while that I really, really enjoyed. Plus it was nice not to be annoyed by Ax.