Friday, January 25, 2013

Animorphs #9 - The Secret by K.A. Applegate Title: The Secret (Animorphs #9)
Author: K.A. Applegate
Publication Date: August 1997
Length: 158 pages

Warning: This is a review of the ninth book in the series, so it may contain spoilers from earlier books.

The Animorphs discover that the Yeerks have set up a logging facility in the woods by Cassie's house, where Ax and Tobias live. Since they still think the Animorphs are Andalites, the Yeerks figure they must be hiding out in the woods, so they plan to destroy the habitat to flush out the Animorphs. Cassie has the idea to sneak in and find out how they got permission to log there, so there might be a political way to stop them. They sneak in by morphing termites, which turns out to be a pretty disturbing experience.

I love when Cassie narrates. She's definitely the nicest and most down-to-earth character. Plus, she's always thinking, so her books always have philosophical questions. In this case, she comes to the realisation that nature is brutal, and that morality is complicated when animals need to kill each other to live.

The termite morph was awesome. It started off fine, seeming like the termite had no will of its own for the human mind to have to overcome. But once they get near the queen, they find themselves forgetting that they're even human. It's very creepy, and Cassie has a bit of a panic attack.

The Secret also has some impressive fight scenes, and Visser 3 totally gets sprayed by a skunk. That really made my day. :)

4 stars.
Posted by Lianne Lavoie at 7:00 AM Labels: children's, sci-fi Follow @TheToweringPile Recently Popular Posts My Wishlist Lianne's bookshelf: currently-reading The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
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