So this is the one where the Animorphs get blown back in time 65 million years by a nuclear explosion, and they fight dinosaurs and almost get eaten a bunch of times and discover that the Earth wasn’t always as alien free as we thought.
I mean, you hear that premise, and you think, Ooh, fun! Dinosaurs! Time travel! But this book is the Animorphs doing dinosaurs and time travel, so that means it’s all kinds of messed up. No Jurassic Park wonder and fun times to be found. Instead, we have Tobias and Rachel getting eaten by an enormous water-dwelling dinosaur, the rest of the kids thinking they’re dead and doing some serious grieving, some truly terrifying encounters with dinosaurs (including multiple with t-rex’s), aliens that are made out of billions of ants, and, oh, having to choose whether or not to save an entire species or let them die.
Probably the Animorph who gets the most interesting storyline here is Cassie. The rest of them are just sort of along for the ride, and do their best to survive 65 million years in the past. But Cassie is starting to break (fitting foreshadowing for the next book, which has Cassie quitting the team). Each mission bothers her more, and she can’t even stomach morphing predators anymore. At one point, they morph t-rex’s, and all lose control of the morph, but it completely takes Cassie over in a way that a morph never has and things get a little brutal.
As with their last little jaunt in time, this whole episode has no bearing on future events. They don’t even get to keep their dinosaur morphs (a situation which is entirely handwaved away, not even a tiny attempt is made to explain it). At least this time, they get to keep their memories.
Up next, Cassie and a Yeerk get entirely too close for comfort.