#(the only issue is how thoroughly widespread cell phone use makes the book plot nonfunctional)

[regallibellbright]

It probably does affect my fondness for Henry V a bit that, on top of all other factors (including ‘once more into the breach’ being our first wifi password when the house got wifi, years and years ago,) I was introduced to it as a symbol of one man’s resistance against an alien brain slug controlling his body, because the brain slug couldn’t control his thoughts so he could at least run Henry V’s monologues at the brain slug on loop. This continued until the brain slug was so sick of hearing it that, when he got the ability to travel back in time to make a more Yeerk-friendly present day, one of his stops was the Battle of Agincourt specifically to make Henry V lose the battle so that Shakespeare wouldn’t write a play about it, just to spite his host.

The book ends with the man preventing his parents from meeting so that he will never be born and the alien brain slug that parasitized him can’t time travel. So you know, a typical Animorphs special.

#also the kids witness D-Day! #this is as traumatizing for them as you’d expect from Animorphs #Animorphs #between that and the ‘Jake gets Yeerked’ book that was also one of the handful I read #I got a pretty hefty dose of PSYCHOLOGICAL horror pretty early on from those books #you know moreso than the usual from Animorphs where the back of the blurb is a warning #that maybe people you know are under Yeerk control #cause nothing says fun kids books like wacky covers and paranoia fuel! #(seriously though kids are resilient and though the books are DARK AS FUCK they were not written at an age inappropriate level) #(I handled this fine and would give them to a seven-to-ten-year-old without hesitation) #(the only issue is how thoroughly widespread cell phone use makes the book plot nonfunctional) #(they simply would not be able to go off the grid so thoroughly without it going unnoticed and a kid would struggle to suspend disbelief) #just you know. we joke. and it always surprises me people DON’T know what Animorphs was about because the back blurbs admit it #this is a war story against an unseen enemy controlling people they know #it hides the TRAUMA and the fucked up actions the kids have to take #but it’s very upfront about the war bit and the covers do convey some of the morphing body horror #which we hear about IN DETAIL every time they do it! #thank you ka applegate #(sincere)