Animorphs #12: The Reaction Plot: Rachel's morphing has been doing some really weird things lately. Changing at random, shifting straight from one morph to another, things that aren't supposed to be possible are happening without warning -- whether she's having a teacher conference or trying to stop a Sharing endorsement. And with the random morphing and demorphing, it might be something suspicious to see in an "Andalite."

Main Plot Points:

• The Yeerks have been trying to promote The Sharing by infesting one of the top teen-preteen stars.
• Rachel is allergic to crocodile DNA. Morphing allergies do weird things to you . . .

Characters Introduced/Mentioned:

• Jeremy Jason McCole, preteen boy star eerily similar to JTT a while back.

Morphs:

• Crocodile (Rachel)
• Llama (Marco)

Personality Conflicts:

• Rachel, as well as Cassie both get a superficial crush on JJM. Even though they exchange nothing more than words (and he's a snotty little celebrity-Controller) she feels a lot of chemistry for him. She doesn't mention Tobias in relation to any of these, but I bet she feels a little guilty.
• She lies to everyone, especially Jake, about her sickness being over just so she can go on the TV show. This could mean that she was selfish, but it was mainly because she wanted to protect JJM as well as the thousands of girls who would be influenced by him. This mainly tells that she'll do just about anything to fight and get her mission done, as we'll learn more later . . .

Notes and Observations:

• In writing a morphing theory, the question always comes up as to how a person can be allergic to DNA. Is it something the body thinks is a foreign protein, like a virus? If so, why doesn't it just make the allergic person sick instead of messing up their morphing? Maybe it's just the way certain people's biologies blend with the morphing technology that causes a certain DNA to mess up.
• JJM apparently became a voluntary Controller for his career, not to mention a little money and power on the side. But when he became de-infested, he effectively disappeared, moving to a small, almost unknown (I'm even tempted to think it might be made up except it sounds familiar) Asian country.

Comments:
This isn't one of the best books, and its definitely not the best Rachel book, but it was actually pretty good. It had all the things that I like in Rachel-books: Good personality-motivated stuff (even this book had some character development), nice blend of seriousness with humor, and that elusive "Rachel-ness" which made the book so neat. So this book has an important lesson: do not jump into crocodile pits and try to morph and battle the boss gator. It may have destructive effects to your house.

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