Book 22: The Solution

Publishing Date: October 1998

Narrator: Rachel

My rating:

Rachel and the Animorphs have a terrible decision to make. David, the newest Animorph, has killed Tobias and turned traitor. He has all of their powers and knows their secret identities. They have to figure out how to stop him once and for all, before he murders them all or worse, turns them over to Visser Three.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I love the David trilogy. It’s probably my favourite part of the whole series, and this book is probably my favourite book out of the whole series. I’ll confirm that when I’ve re-read everything! I love how Rachel starts coming to terms with her own violent tendencies, how she’s beginning to be OK about being the ‘bad guy’ of the group. She’s still a good guy, after all. But most of all, I love how Cassie manipulates David, how she can read him so well that she knows exactly how he’s going to react, and that Cassie is the one to come up with the plan. The plan to end all plans. The plan that would leave them moral, but victorious.

David is the clear cut bad guy in this book. Only half of the book is dedicated to the ‘biggest mission’ the Animorphs have ever attempted: saving the Heads of State of several large nations from being infested by Yeerks. The Yeerks almost take a back seat in this novel. Their story is over by the half way mark. The rest of it is dedicated to the plan to end all plans, the plan to kick David’s touchey back to Doucheland where it belongs.

There’s only a few things I have a problem with in this novel.

Point the first: When David leaves Cassie’s barn at the end of the last book, Tobias follows him. Tobias loses him. David is legit convinced he’s killed Tobias, when it happens o be some other red-tailed hawk innocently flying around in the middle of the fucking night. I know red-tails are supposed to be common, but hawks are diurnal. It would be rare to come across some innocent hawk in David’s flight path that he mistook for Tobias.

Point the second: When David is busy killing Rachel at dawn, Tobias tackles the motherfucker. David is not blinded. David is also not stupid. He clearly sees two birds there, a half-dead owl and a hawk with pretty red tail feathers, and decides to retreat. He does not think that maybe this is Tobias, and that the mysterious nocturnal hawk was some innocent creature.

Point the third: When David attacks the dolphin-Animorphs using an orca morph, he doesn’t count them. He just assumes that pod of dolphins is five, when it’s really six. And he’s too busy chasing Rachel to realise one of them slips away, demorphs in the middle of a storm, and remorphs into a humpback whale.

Apart from those plot holes, this novel is by far one of the best in the series. I chalk it up to David’s megalomania and delusions of grandeur. And also, Cassie is fantastic in this book. She works so subtly and often behind the scenes.

Join me for a review of The Hork-Bajir Chronicles next week!

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