Aug 6, 2020

The Journey

Animorphs #42
by K.A. Applegate
   
     Um, craziness again. The Animorphs encounter that very very tiny alien race the Helmacrons again. The aliens steal the Escafil device and then during a confrontation when the Animorphs try to get it back- the aliens go up Marco's nose. Yes, literally. Where they threaten to do serious bodily harm. So of course the Animorphs figure out how to shrink themselves and follow. It's very much like a Magic School Bus adventure. It's very gross and nonsensical and horrific. Long story short, they end up as morphed sharks- so microscopic they are swimming in Marco's bloodstream and watch his T-cells engulf other cells. (How they can see in the dark as sharks I'm not sure). Also there's a subplot where Marco is chasing down a kid who spied on them morphing in a back alley before the Helmacron encounter and took a photo. Marco's trying to steal the camera to destroy evidence but is thwarted by the kid's dog (a pit bull type). It all turns out okay in the end, but I won't tell you how because for me that was the best part. I was alternately rolling my eyes and cringing through the inner-body experience, but then when the Animorphs finally exited and found themselves still smaller than grains of sand and in an unknown place, with Marco unconscious maybe dead, that got interesting again. Also Marco was acting very out-of-character but there was a good explanation for that (which also was problematic in a way but I was willing to overlook it).

Very odd that this book happened to echo two things current IRL- of course the book I just finished which was all about a similar kind of dog- and the whole thing about the main characters as tiny beings inside the body witnessing very first hand how Marco's body defended itself from something invasive- well that of course made me think a lot about the virus. In an uncomfortable way, though it should have been encouraging!

Rating: 3/5             160 pages, 2000     

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