kengore's reviews
353 reviews

Very dry, not fun at all.

I'm not sure that Cassie is the strongest of narrators. The disdain the others feel towards her concerns for the animals come off quite mean spirited, and I don't know if it's fully because of people's attitudes at the time. Generally I have fun with Animorphs but this one feels a bit less focused.

I really liked about 75% of this book. The rest, as some other review mentioned, felt unfinished. Not sure if I will continue with the series, I'll decide later.

It's amazing how much this uplifting and poignant story ended up looking so similar to a lecture. I felt talked down to by a main character that was puppy-kicking and cold hearted in one page, then reciting what could only be described as "the author's therapy session notes" on the next. I enjoyed the first chapter, but then the attempts at humor and romance got in my nerves. 

I'm glad I finished this book at last because wowie is it challenging (and not in the good sense)
I feel like this book is held in great esteem by a specific group of people and no review will change their mind, but if you've read stuff like The Secret History, you'll realize how much of this book is derivative and unoriginal.
One thing is to know that all art is derivative, something else is putting so much from someone else's work in your book that if you removed those quotes, your book would have nothing going on for itself. M.L. Rio should be thankful this is all copyright free (or maybe it was done on purpose, I have no way of knowing).
See, the problem is not the quotes themselves (many readers might find it annoying or pedantic, it wasn't my own experience), but the fact that if you remove the quotes, the narrative left is so tired and unimaginative. The bully dates the vixen, who happens to be a redhead. We also have the maiden. The dichotomy between the Good Gay (the one who does not "act gay"

and dies tragically at the end, by his own hand, in a pseudo romantic manner

) and the Bad Gay (portrayed as a sexual deviant

and a drug addict

). The main protagonist who's some Gary Stu to whom Things Just Happen To. Don't get me started on "my family does not get why this school is soooo important to me, nevermind that living there has been constant torture for me, because it's like a symbol of how an artist must suffer for their art". I think the intention is to portray their situation as "our isolation and obsession with academia, I mean Shakespeare, has caused us to go off the rails", but it's all so clumsily put together that Richard's aggression comes out of left field and by the time we're recovered from it, and we're asked to be invested emotionally on their drama, we realize we don't care about this people enough. Why don't we? Because the narrative starts in year four, we're told that everything was right until then but we're not shown it. We start at the point of no return for them and we haven't got anything to compare with. We're not shown the Good Old Days. From the very beginning we're shown people who are not consolidated as a group, so don't try to convince me that they were a happy family. It does not come across.

Also, seriously? All this drama for a school play? Be serious for once.

I can't put five stars on this because I did not like a certain aspect of the ending.

After some deliberation and consideration I will say, that this book, is in fact a good horror book.
That immediately means that it's not for everyone, and I would even say it's not for most people.
There's a list of topics it deals with but it can be summed up by just saying it's about child abuse, simple as that.
My first thought when reading the book, as I like to go in as blindly as possible, was that this was just another case of "let's idealize and normalize behaviors that aren't and were never cool as a background for my horror book" but I was in fact, mistaken.
Because I believe the book starts in that premise to lure you in, to start as "one of those books" and then make you realize that it's precisely about that normalization of violence against children that's so prevalent in the 50s and 60s.
The author goes on to say that this was normal and feeling powerless, feeling like you belonged to whatever adult took care of you, was a normal and regular thing.
"Children got beat" he said, as if it was a matter of fact and not the horrible thing that should never happen, but not because he the author believes it so, but because when you're a child in that situation, you are raised to believe it is an inevitable fact of life, precisely because everyone around you also went through it. My own father lived through it and I can tell you, he was a severely hurt man.
So kids are raised through abuse, to accept abuse, to then become abusive when their time in power comes, ad infinitum. It's about that horror cycle that we, generation after generation, are trying to break. And also it's about looking square in the face to those who're like "back in my days we had true childhoods and we got to experience freedom and innocence". Like, my sibling in sin, you were beat up, smoked and drank at age 12 and your parents had to have an ad on tv to remember to check if their children were home at night, do not lie to me.
Also 
If someone reads this book and stops taking the book seriously after "descriptions of underage breasts", then they're not reading critically, nor thinking critically in my opinion.
Because it is precisely about that, about how boys are turned to evil and perversion by action (and inaction) of adults.
It's not gratuitous, it's for a purpose, and just because it exists in the narrative doesn't mean it's pornographic for the same reason that any bodily description is not inherently pornographic
hell, erotic scenes aren't *inherently* pornographic either, it depends on execution and context as everything in literature. And even if it was gratuitous, that gratuitousness does say something. It's a horror book, it's supposed to cause feelings of dread and make you uncomfortable, and this book does it so well. 
I'm glad I've read it.

A marvelous insight into Ax's character. 

I liked it even though the pace was rather clumsy. Always a good time with Animorphs.

I wanted to finish the Animorphs books but I realized most details were fuzzy so I'm re-reading what I had gone through until I can catch up.
In my first reading I hadn't realized that so much happened in the first book, so many revelations all at once at a neckbreaking speed. Perhaps if the pacing had been slightly lighter it would have earned the 5 stars but nevertheless it's an excellent start for this series. I hope I can finish it this year.