Thank you, Animorphs. Including my credit for unfinished books, this is book #49 for the year. I'm only going to hit 50 because these books are so fast to read.
The Forgotten (Animorphs #11) by K.A. Applegate
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Liked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
I keep wondering how these books are so dark and how much darker they'll get. This is book 11 of 50+ books, and if this pattern continues, in a few books we're going to have outright torture.
As seems to be my trend with this series, I didn't like the plot so much, but I loved seeing the effect of all this on the characters. I'll put spoilers behind a cut, since now I'm ahead of another reviewer who is reading these for the first time.
The plot involved time travel, one copy of the group stuck in a rain forest while the other group remained where they were in America. Right from the get-go, the situation in the jungle was awful and the kids almost died multiple times. In the final battle, Jake (the leader of the group) was actually killed. However, like all the "worst" scenes in this series, nothing was shown, it was just fade to black/implied.
When the timeline resolved, there was still one Jake left, so while he knows he died, he's also alive as well.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'd love a better written version of this series. One without plotholes and eye-rolly action. I bet there's good fanfic out there...