Book 15: The Escape
Publishing Date: January 1998
Narrator: Marco
My rating:
The Yeerks have a secret underwater facility and are preparing hammerhead sharks for infestation prior to launching an attack on another water-based planet. The Animorphs have to stop them, at any cost. Also, Visser One is back.
This is one of Marco’s better books – because he’s legitimately afraid of sharks. The first time he morphed a dolphin, a shark bit him literally in half. He’s afraid of getting close to sharks, and he’s even afraid of morphing a shark. He is also afraid of the other Animorphs finding out that their greatest enemy is wrapped around his mother’s brain, and he’s afraid of failing to rescue her.
Overall, this book delves pretty deeply into Marco’s fears and insecurities. Also, it’s a funny book for Tobias, who can acquire and morph – but only out of his hawk body. This means that to acquire a dolphin he has to re-enact a rodeo. In front of a mid-day audience. No kidding. It’s also mostly set in a giant underwater facility which is really cool.
Marco has to reveal his biggest secret that he’s been keeping from the other Animorphs. He doesn’t want their pity because he’s the comedian of the group, but in the end he needs to succumb because despite his ruthlessness, he’s still hopeful that one day his mother will be free.
This book is pretty essential for the overall storyline and it’s a sort of prequel to one of the later books that takes place on Leera after the invasion is launched. The big events include Marco’s secret revealed, and Visser Three in some kind of giant water snake morph witnessing Rachel in bear morph letting Visser One go. That’s a repercussion that reverberates through the rest of the series. Of course, Visser One doesn’t know Marco is an Animorph – she interacts with him as a human and deduces he’s been made a Controller. Of course, Visser One is far more intelligent than Visser Three…
Join me for a review of Book #15: The Escape next week!
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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.
the scarecrow
I love this one, it’s one of my favourites. That moment where Marco finally has to confess that his mom is Visser One is probably one of the more upsetting moments of the series. He’s lucky his friends are so nice, because it could just have easily been the thing that caused them to mistrust him so badly that it tore the group apart.
Nemo
Yeah, it’s amazing he kept it a secret for so long and even in desperate times didn’t mention anything, until it was almost too late.
the scarecrow
He did get to trust in Jake though, so I guess that helped. I can’t believe that he can bear all these secrets on top of the whole fighting-an-intergalactic-war issue needing to be kept under wraps, and yet he flips his morphing shit when his dad wants to remarry. Proverbial straw, eh?
Nemo
YES I KNOW OMG. That was totally stupid.