~*~Passive-aggressive friendly reminder that I never actually finished this series so don’t talk about the ending!~*~

This is the first book of the series I ever read! I wonder if I’d have picked it up with uncanny valley catperson staring out at me. Also, I assume the otherwise inexplicable red background is to make up for the lack of blood in this one.

In retrospect, the title is pretty terrible. What visitor? I guess she is, but it really has nothing to do with the real point. “The Friend” would be more relevant to the central conflict she faces.

Ch1 Rachel explains that only the magic of not giving her last name keeps her and her friends safe from yeerks, which are super evil brainslugs and a fate worse than death. You know, is it really? I mean, it’s definitely not the best, but I’m not such a fan of dying, either. And the yeerks seem to mostly just go about your life instead of torturing you constantly, although the books do try to go that route at times.

Her recap has already dropped last book’s suggested timeline of the andalites presumably arriving in a year in favor of “a long time”.

Currently, she’s flying with her friends and suddenly has a freakout that what if she breaks her wing up here it’d be a death sentence. I’m pretty sure birds fall slow when they’re not making an effort otherwise. Tobias instead advises to let the eagle brain do it.

They get away with so much by saying it’s animal instinct, when actual birds have to learn to fly.

Then someone starts shooting at them.

<As soon as you see the flash of the rifle, dodge hard right!> I yelled.
A normal eagle or hawk or falcon would not have been able to figure that out. But we weren’t just raptors. We still had our human intelligence.

This is the sort of random factoid the books are stuffed with. Hypothetically, the further away from a bullet you are, the greater the time difference between the flash and the bullet. In practice, the most it’ll do is let you realize you’re about to be shot before the bullet hit.

Anyway, Rachel is enraged because she’s an endangered species, dammit! So instead of getting out of there, they dive into the forest, speed-dodge trees with an agility I’m not sure they have, and attack the guys. At least no one goes for the eyes this time. She makes off with the rifle, Marco steals the beer can because they shouldn’t be drinking (because…there’s just one can?) and no one thinks to look at the license plate and report them for shooting at bald eagles. Instead, Rachel carries the gun a mile out onto the ocean and drops it because obviously a gun has no practical use for people waging a shadow war.

Ch2 Reminder about the two hour limit, then they morph back! This is where the idea morphing is super gross and weird begins.

The feathers that covered me began to melt. They ran together like hot wax. In some places when my skin reappeared, it would have this beautiful feather pattern for a few seconds.
My yellow bill sucked back into my mouth to become white teeth. That part sort of itched. It made me want to grind my teeth a few times.
My lips grew out around my teeth. My eyes went from pale gold to my normal blue. My legs grew quite a bit, from about three inches to normal size.
I looked over at Jake and saw the same things happening to him. Let me just tell you — watching someone morph is not a pretty sight. It’s the kind of thing that would give you screaming nightmares if you didn’t know it was going to be all right.

We also get more on Cassie’s being better at it since she manages to change back keeping her arms as wings for a minute.

Cue recap: Cassie dresses practically and has animals. Rachel is pretty but she’s not actually into that – I don’t remember if the book ever tried to leverage that into her character development or if it just happened, but it seems there’s a decent core of Rachel not caring about the same thing everyone values about her, so she dives into this new thing for meaning. Marco and Rachel fight, apparently, despite last book having the two mostly clash with Jake. She tells us he just likes to be annoying. Jake is so boring he doesn’t get a separate description of his own. And Tobias is a bird.

Ch3

morphing always takes a lot out of you.

Believe this is the first place that’s established as well. It’s an important limiter on the power, since otherwise they could easily demorph and morph again to avoid the two hour limit and keep going or to heal every injury and keep fighting for ages. I think there’s a later book that’ll completely forget this for a plot point, but otherwise this is going to remain standard.

She recaps the construction site events, stopping just short of saying she watched a guy get eaten and directing us to ask Jake for all the rest, but there’s really nothing more to hear. Then Cassie starts crying and recap of the yeerk pool thing.

Oh, also while the rest of them avoid the construction site Tobias flies over to sit where his elfdeer savior died for our sins. I wonder when the whole reveal there was first planned? It’s much better with Tobias just being obsessed with the first person to demonstratively care about him.

Marco again argues for giving the hell up already. We find out the door to the yeerk pool is “gone” which frankly probably just means bricked off because there’s only so much you can do, and would still be a viable way in. Instead, they decide to track the other yeerk host they know, assistant principal guy! Luckily Rachel used to be best friends with his daughter, though she’s been withdrawn more recently. (No one thinks anything of the fact someone in proximity to a yeerk host has changed behavior recently.) Rachel objects to “using” her friend for something that’ll save the world and also her dad in particular, Marco bitches because she’s fine endangering him.

They really seem to have this weird block in their heads between the yeerks with bodies they need to fight and the fact they’re taking over people. The brainslug isn’t actually her dad. That’s kind of the whole reason the yeerks are bad and need to be stopped.

Ch4&5 Rachel, she is a gymnast. She suggests going to the mall with Melissa, who makes excuses and otherwise acts weird. Rachel’s so distracted she hurts herself and Melissa runs over to comfort her and acts like her old self, but then wanders off and is back to being remote. Despite the fact this is the exact opposite of what you’d expect yeerk behavior to be, it prompts Rachel to worry her friend’s already been taken. Well, at least she’s remembering to be suspicious of people.

Then on the way home some high school or college kid decides to show up to tell her to get in his car. She runs but he chases her.

I had been stupid going out alone. But fortunately, unlike most people, I wasn’t helpless.

I don’t believe Rachel or any of the kids ever consider taking self-defense courses, just like they don’t seem to grasp the utility of guns OR space guns. I guess they think the morphing beats it, but you’d think any advantage you can get is a good one, right? Especially because morphing is a slow defense and very noticeable. She demorphs just before vice principal controller shows up, and her shoes are suspiciously destroyed.

“Oh, that was dumb! Dumb! DUMB!” Marco said. “What if that guy is a Controller?”
“He wasn’t a Controller,” I said scornfully. “Why would the Yeerks want to make a Controller out of a punk? They want people in positions of power.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” Jake said. “Tom isn’t in a position of power.”

I don’t think we ever get a good explanation for the yeerk’s selection process beyond that THE SHARING is a front. Infecting kids seems amazingly dangerous – if the kid’s grounded the night they’re supposed to head to the yeerk pool, the yeerk is screwed. They seem to want to get all levels of society, but you really don’t need that in your initial wave.

Maybe it’s because they’re looking for willing hosts and those are valuable enough it doesn’t matter what their position is, but most people end up balking so the result is lots of regular hosts that have to be kept under control so they don’t spill the beans. (In practice the willing hosts also seem like the well-placed ones. Come to think of it, that’s even weirder – you’d think willing hosts would almost all be people on the very bottom rungs of society, desperate enough that some of them would accept anything as an improvement. That could easily lead to some bad messages, though, if all the originally important people are unwilling hosts while the former homeless appointed to other positions in the organization are all collaborators.)

Cassie gave me an encouraging smile. “It was dumb putting yourself in that position, Rachel. You need to be more careful. But still, I’d have paid my next ten allowances to see the look on that guy’s face.”

Cassie’s really annoying me. I guess little me was impressed by this, but to me now she looks like someone who’s so conflict adverse she has no actual opinions and just says whatever makes the arguing stop.

(Also, no one seems to be asking what other options Rachel actually had given she was getting chased by at best a rapist. I guess saying to make sure you always kill the guy so he can’t talk is too dark even for these books.)

(Oh hey, what if brain-altering drugs poison the yeerks? So after they try infesting the first dozen people rambling about people turning into monsters or animals into other animals only to die raving about all the colors they see, they stop following up on those reports completely.)

Small animals are suggested for getting into Melissa’s home, and they debate if a cockroach would even be useful. You could just test it to find out, idiots. That’s another problem with the books. They want to space out the morphs, so the kids don’t grab every animal they can right off the bat. They really should’ve written in a limitation there, like that you could only grab a morph once in a period of time, or concern that the morphing device only has room for so many – latter concern doesn’t even need to be true, it’s something the kids could just worry about given they know nothing about it beyond turn into animals and don’t stay one for over two hours.

Ch6:

They decide to morph Melissa’s cat. Halfway through, Rachel mentions it’s a boy and Cassie freaks out because tomcats are apparently unstoppable murder machines. First off, does California not do the whole spay/neuter thing? Why are you so confident he’s still got his balls? I was expecting her to be concerned because neutering shouldn’t carry through to the morph. (Or, come to think of it, the fact an unneutered male cat let outdoors will absolutely be scarred up, meaning a genetic copy will just make you look like his prettier brother.) Also, they are totally not pound for pound the nastiest animal. A bit tough to restrain but doable.

“Even if he is fixed, a male cat, out at night in hunting mode?” Cassie shook her head. “We should have worn gloves.”

Female cats tend to be the scratchy ones, or at least fixed ones are. Neutered male cats aren’t hunters and are the friendliest. Mind you, cats in general will tear you up if they don’t like you, and Cassie has easy access to gloves. Not sure why the author didn’t just have her bring some, as a tomcat is flexible enough to still be trouble (and it’s going to look so suspicious when they limp into school tomorrow covered in bandages).

Anyway, kitty hates them for some reason and runs up a tree, which is really your bigger issue with cats. They’re not much for standing and fighting.

Ch7 Brilliant plan – get a mouse to lure the cat. Tobias gets a “baby” one, never explained why he thinks this, which turns out to be a shrew he drops in Rachel’s hands and somehow it doesn’t tear her fingers to shreds. (I would be willing to believe shrews are a contender in the nastiest animal per pound competition.)

Yes, the person who’s supposed to acquire the cat is turning into the mouse to lure it instead of someone else doing that so she can grab the cat on his way down. Because otherwise we wouldn’t get to hear what being a shrew is like. I’m not sure why it’s a shrew because it ends up seeming like a mouse. Shrews have more murder and less fear.

Ch8 The three of them managed to stuff the squalling, hissing, slashing Fluffer into the carrier and close the door.

See, if Rachel had grabbed it she could’ve begun acquiring immediately, Fluffer would’ve calmed right down, and all would be well.

Also, I can’t believe anyone could force a tomcat into a cat carrier. You’d lose fingers in the process and still go nowhere.

I guess Fluffer was tired of causing trouble. He was actually asleep in the cat carrier. Sleeping like nothing at all was going on.
A typical cat. He even purred as I acquired him.

These books tended to sound very authoritative on books, but they weren’t particularly right. If you’re ever considering caging a cat to pacify it, it really doesn’t work. Maybe the authors are thinking of otherwise friendly cats that were just struggling not to go in a carrier.

Also, Cassie does mention the possibility of morphs being limited, after trying to do more with the nature spirits idea that’ll never really work, Marco suggests it’ll be a horrible plot point one day, and then I don’t think it’s ever brought up again or factors into their decisions. Many books down the line there’ll be another thing that could be used to discourage getting lots of morphs, but I’m pretty sure that never matters again.

Ch9

Rachel has a dream about being a shrew eating maggots, and then throws up. Wimp. Her sister is disturbed.

She looked at me solemnly. “I know I’m just your little sister by two years, but you would tell me if something bad was happening to you, right? I mean, I wouldn’t tell Mom or anyone. You could trust me.”
I smiled and drew her into a hug. “I know I can trust you. If anything bad was going on, I’d tell you.” It was a lie, of course, and the lie made me feel even worse. I trusted Jordan. I knew in my heart that she was not a Controller.

Rachel then notes that of course she wouldn’t want to believe that, because Jake sure didn’t. And indeed, this is exactly the sort of lure a suspicious yeerk might use. Last book the yeerks clearly had the main characters included on whatever list of probable suspects they worked up, and it makes sense they’re still being watched just in case.

Of course, she could just keep an eye on Jordan and verify that she’s not controlled. I’m sure they must eventually do this, but it’s weird it’s not immediate.

I guess all this is most noticeable in a second book. The books space out events to give them downtime, which is needed, but they can’t do anything in the between-book periods, so the next book starts and they haven’t done any of the things they should have. Add to that how it’s obviously more fun to have the characters constantly thinking about how ANYONE COULD BE A YEERK than to think about how they actually have practical ways of finding out if anyone could be a yeerk. Plus, it’d get in the way of how they can’t tell anyone because they can’t trust anyone.

I wonder if this is a particular problem when you’re trying to pretend this is really happening and kids can imagine they’re part of it with heroes who can do all sorts of things the reader can’t. Ordinary kids would have trouble keeping constant surveillance on adults, but Tobias is a bird.

(A whole bunch of things would be helped if Tobias became a bird a few books in instead, so they’re still all kids most of the day at the moment. A lot of episodic things have the problem of throwing in as many cool ideas as possible in the beginning, then slowing to a crawl to keep it going as long as possible.)