Good Evening!

This late night version of book reviews is brought to you by Jonny’s need for catnaps after dinner. I’ve seriously got to lighten up on the pasta so I don’t keep messing with my sleep cycle!

Anywho, I’m on a big reading roll this week.

The book I just finished was Animorphs #32, The Separation by KA Applegate.

Fun fact, based on the blurb I actually vaguely recall this book and the whole two Rachels thing. Beyond that, who knows? Needless to say, I jumped in!

Blurb:

Rachel is falling apart. Literally. Her newest morph the ability to regenerate its limbs, but when Rachel demorphs there’s a lot more Rachel than when she started out. One more Rachel, to be exact. Rachel is an okay person to have around. But two could be considered overkill. Especially two Rachels with completely opposite personalities: one is pathetically weak; one is super strong and super nasty.Now the Animorphs have to figure out a way to put Rachel back together again. Because if it’s up to the “twins, ” Rachel the weak will surrender to Visser Three. Rachel the super bold will try to single-handedly take him down. And twice the trouble may be twice as much as the other Animorphs and Ax can handle….

GoodReads

The Review:

I gave this book three and a half stars, which is strange considering my usual rating of Rachel POV’s.

In a nutshell, Rachel is on a field trip near the beach when she loses an earring in the water. To get the earring back, she acquires and morphs a starfish, only to be injured by some dumb kid with a steel shovel.

When she demorphs at warp speed to heal herself, everything seems okay, except for the fact that Rachel feels different. She’s emotional, fearful, easy to break into a cry. And when the other Animorphs realize there’s another version of her out there it jeopardizes their current mission.

Can they figure out this dilemma, or will they have to deal with two incomplete Rachels for the foreseeable future?

I was slightly disappointed with this one, and I’d like to blame it on that dumb kid with the steel shovel! *shakes fist* You ruined everything, kid!

The concept of this book really hooked me into this read. I mean, two Rachels causing havoc? Sign me up! She’s my favorite of the Animorph team. Unfortunately, there’s too much that could’ve been done better that affected my opinion negatively.

Let’s start with Rachel. She’s a complex character that we’ve come to love through the books so far. I feel that her personality split left a bit to be desired. She’s split into two Rachels. The first basically lunges around looking to murder, murder, MURDER! This version of Rachel actually made sense to me. This is the side that all the violence, rage, and dark stuff she’s been exposed has been created. It lacked the emotional depth of her character but proved its point.

The other Rachel was more of her softer side. The side that actually shows fear, sadness, and other emotions, only amped up to a ten all the time. In theory, this side of Rachel made sense, but the execution of her character kind of annoyed me. How many times can you say ‘like’? Ugh. I just feel like this side of Rachel was created from a stereotype and it didn’t quite fit.

I will say that the other Animorphs attitude towards Rachel made complete sense, so that really worked well.

The plot was alright, but I just ended up wanting more from the experience. The side mission fell a bit to the wayside until the end, and I would’ve preferred it be more prevalent throughout. Also, we never really get an explanation of what actually happened to Rachel and why there were two of her. I’m not saying I expected a very well thought out sciency explanation, but we hardly got anything.

Ultimately, this was a fun read, but was lacking a bit in plot and characterization. Still, I’m looking forward to the next read. Here’s hoping it’s a good one!

That’s a Wrap!

Thanks for stopping by, and happy reading!

Have you read this book before? What did you think? Do you have a book recommendation similar to this one? Feel free to share in the comments!

If you’d like to see other reviews of mine, feel free to check out my blog homepage or my GoodReads. You can also follow my GoodReads reviews here. There are some great binge-worthy books on there!

Have a great day!

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