Project Animorphs: Book #6 The Capture

animorphs reread project

The Capture (Animorphs, #6)

Book 6: The Capture

Publishing Date: February 1997

Narrator: Jake

My rating:

4 of 5 hearts

In Animorphs Book #6: The Capture, Jake and the Animorphs find out that the Yeerks are taking over a local hospital in the hopes of infesting the future President of the United States. They decide to shut the operation (pun HA HA) down but in doing so, Jake gets infested with a Yeerk and becomes a Controller.

Jake doesn’t actually get infested until well past the half-way mark. The Yeerk who infests him is pretty damned stupid and/or arrogant and thinks he can talk his way out of being held prisoner until he starves to death. It’s a great look at exactly what being a Controller is like. We’ve heard about it in all the previous books, but never seen it first hand. Now we see through Jake’s eyes as he is a prisoner in his own body and the Yeerk digs through his memories and fantasies, and tries to convince his friends he’s not infested.

It’s a great point, so near the beginning of the series, to publish this book. Earlier in the novel Jake makes the decision to kill a hundred helpless Yeerks in a Jacuzzi being used as a mobile Yeerk pool. As a child I didn’t think this was wrong – I probably wanted it as well. As an adult, I find it distasteful. Having read the entire series it’s hard to see the Yeerks as all evil conquerors, wiping out civilisations and enslaving entire species. However, it’s true. What the Yeerks can’t conquer, they destroy. The hundred Yeerks in that pool were raised on military propaganda and all probably thought they were the rightful masters of the universe. I still find it uncomfortable and sad that helpless sentient slugs are murdered, and I think Cassie has rubbed off on me, although she doesn’t try to stop it. I still think it’s wrong, although I see why it happens. And I know that if those Yeerks aren’t killed, they’ll go on to enslave others.

It’s a hard part to digest.

The good things about this book:

~ More Tolkien references! The Big Red Eye at the end is a direct homage to Sauron.

~ The Animorphs morph flies and love it.

~ Jake getting caught behind his parent’s fridge after demorphing from a cockroach, and Cassie’s new tough position on the matter of individuals practising morphs with no one else around.

Join me for a review of Book #7: The Stranger next week!

Nemo
Nemo

About Nemo

A lover of kittens and all things sparkly, Nemo has a degree in English Literature and specialises in reviewing contemporary, paranormal, mystery/thriller, historical, sci-fi and fantasy Young Adult fiction. She is especially drawn to novels about princesses, strong female friendships, magical powers, and assassins.

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