Welcome to the Moonlight Library’s 30 Day Animorphs Challenge!
Despite Project Animorphs in 2013, I clearly do not talk about Animorphs enough.
This particular challenge is taken from the Heck Yeah Tumblr Challenges archive on Tumblr.

Day 11: A Controller you love…or love to hate

There are many Controllers I could have picked for this particular challenge, including Chapman, Vissers One and Three, and Taylor. But I have to go with Tom.

I love to hate Tom because he’s just so frickin evil and stupid. Jake fought under his roof for three years and he never put two and two together? Even early on, in the very earliest books when the team morphed to freshwater trout to get away from the Sharing Controllers at a beach meeting, and they found clothes in the surf, Tom didn’t even think the Andalite bandits might be human.

He snuck out of the house just as often as Jake did. He was only a couple of years older than Jake, by no means an adult. Tom thinks the answer to being forced into the middle of nowhere for three days is to murder his father? And then he’d be stuck int he middle of nowhere and oh yeah, thrown in jail.

And then finally, when the Yeerks figure out how to identify the ‘Andalite bandits’ using DNA leftover in blood from fights, Tom takes Jake’s parents and turns them into Controllers.

All the time Jake’s hands are tied; he can’t starve out a highly-ranked Yeerk and expect to get away with it (which reminds me, did the Yeerks never re-infest Karen? They just let her walk away kowing about them? What about her dad the bank dude? Off topic: never mind!). Jake’s only hope is to someday kill his own brother, the poor kid’s been a slave in his own body for over three years and then he’s murdered… what a life to live! And Tom doesn’t even get to say goodbye the Jake.

My favourite part was in Megamorphs 4 Back to Before when unpowered Rachel hit him with a baseball bat.

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.