Return to The Return (essay)

Book #48 in the series Animorphs by K.A. Applegate.

Disclaimer: If you've heard of Animorphs and you're thinking "Aww, how cute," maybe you should read my introduction to the first book to see how wrong you are.

THE RETURN

Animorphs #48
by K.A. Applegate

Summarized Plot:

Rachel's cracking up. After several nightmares in which she challenges Jake's authority and gets universally shunned for her violent ambitions, Rachel finds herself whisked away to a dungeon, facing David the rat. He has her trapped in a glass cage and claims he wants to get her back for what she did--he wants to force her to share his fate trapped as a rat. But soon she finds holes in his story and realizes this is actually a trick of Crayak and the Drode, who have been following her rising violent tendencies with interest. They attempt to turn her to the dark side by giving her unimaginable power and easy odds to claim it for herself, but loyalty to Jake and desire to not be forced into a deal with the devil bring her out of the darkness. She realizes that she does the dirty work in the Animorphs because her companions need someone like her to keep their hands clean--or at least cleaner--and she finds herself once again with David's fate in her hands. The responsibility seems crushing even after what she's been through, and she knows she was never meant to be the decision-maker.

About this book:

Narrator: Rachel

New known controllers:

  • None

New morphs acquired:

  • Jake: None
  • Cassie: None
  • Marco: None
  • Rachel: None
  • Ax: None
  • Tobias: None

Notable:

  • This book was ghostwritten by Kimberly Morris. It's credited to Lisa Harkrader, but that was a mistake.

  • David claims that Crayak got him off the island "in exchange for a companion." This whole concept makes little sense because it seems there is no "exchange." David got the favor of being taken off the island AND he got the favor of being promised a companion of his choice. Obviously Crayak has his own reasons for doing what he did for David, but this whole setup is poorly explained.

  • At one point there's a badly punctuated sentence: ". . . I began to shake. The-human and the rat-me." The sentence would read better as "The human-me and the rat-me," or even without the hyphens. There's also an incorrect use of "it's." "Crayak went on, it's voice low and powerful" should be "its."

  • There's some thought-speak confusion in Chapter 24 as well--Rachel flips back and forth from speaking to using thought-speak, with no explanation.

Best lines:

Rachel: Was it the grizzly in me that wanted to kill? Or was it the me in me?

Rachel: The secret was that whatever we'd been doing, I did like it. And the good guys aren't supposed to like it.

Rachel: "I'm confused."
Crayak: "But good and bad are so simple."
The Drode: "Only for the simpleminded."

Rachel: I'd been protecting her. Them. Jake. Cassie. Tobias. Even Marco and Ax. Helping to protect their innocence. Letting them see themselves as the good guys. It was a symbiotic relationship. Or co-dependent, whatever. They needed me to be the bad guy. And I needed them to be the good guys.


Next book: The Diversion, Animorphs #49

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