A few things stuck out to me upon my initial reading of this book. I loved every time Ax ate something and freaked out in his human morph, I vividly remember his chili-eating gusto and picking treats and goodies off the floor in the movie theater. Literally every time ax eats food and freaks out it’s so funny to me. And every time ax talks with humans is hilarious. They really managed to make a funny fish out of water character without taking advantage of inappropriate stereotypes of any kind. Do funny

This was also the first time we meet a Yeerk who is not hell-bent on destroying and enslaving for the sake of evil, where you start to realize that OG is even the yeerks love each other and have romantic relationships. This Yeerk wants to help the animorphs because visser 3 killed his sweetheart.

And we learn about Seerow’s kindness, which is a much more realistic way to explain the animosity that led to a war between alien races than some boring cultural misunderstanding or regular diametric goodies and buddies war, it turns out that the andalites created their own worst enemy through kindness, through sympathy and good intentions.