The 5 Weirdest Animorphs Book Covers of All Time

Hello, Book Nerds! Welcome back to Reading Has Ruined My Life or welcome if you are new. As always, my name is Hannah and I am your captain on this journey into my bookcases.

We need to talk Animorphs once again. K.A. Applegate’s series lives in my head rent free. Not because the story is good, which it is, or because the war plot is lowkey traumatizing, another true statement, but because the covers are so freaking weird! Why is a child turning into a starfish?! How and why is a starfish important to the plot?! I have many questions.

Animorphs lives rent free in my head thanks to all the questions it gives me.

I cannot offer you any answers today. I can never offer you answers. What I can offer you are the top five weirdest Animorphs covers ever designed. For once this list will not be based solely off my opinion. A few months back I asked the question “what is the weirdest Animorphs cover” over on RHRML’s Twitter, BookSky, and Instagram pages. I also asked the same question to some of my friends. I received quite a few replies and the answers were all over the place. I’m pretty sure every cover was mentioned at least once. I had my work cut out for me when it came to deciding the top five weirdest covers. But I did it! So here are my picks for The Top 5 Weirdest Animorphs Covers!

Winner gets bragging rights and a pretty crown.

Also, huge shout out to my friend Frankie. When I asked him for his opinion on this matter he had his list ready! Now let’s get ranking!

5. Kicking things off is The Unknown. Why the long face, kid? Sorry, I had to. The minute the head/face of a character gets extended to an extreme degree, I get upset. The face falls into the uncanny for me. I don’t like it! Though I do feel this is tame compared to some of the other covers I’m about to show you.

4. Next up is The Underground. I feel as if I am looking at a medieval illustration of a vampire. Meaning the child on the cover doesn’t look like a bat. The face comes off as primate more than anything else. And I really don’t like the second to last image as the human sized bat makes me unsettled. This is still not the worst of the worst though.

3. In our number three spot, we have The Separation. Yeah, it’s the starfish cover. There was no way this cover wasn’t appearing on this list. The cone head freaks me out. Why do her legs have to look that this!? The texture is triggering my fight or flight response. This cover deeply unsettles me, I hate everything about it. And I looked up why she needed to turn into a starfish, and found out it’s because she loses an earring and is searching through the tide pools for the item. Then a child proceeds to cut her in half while she’s a starfish! Animorphs is so fucking wild.

2. The next book comes courtesy of Colin on BlueSky. They sent me the following photo of The Message. The way I screamed upon seeing this cover cannot be described. Think part scream of terror and part laugh because the image is genuinely absurd. The only response I could manage was “oh my god, what is that!?” Seriously, what is that? Is that supposed to be a dolphin? (It is in fact supposed to be a dolphin).

1. Taking the top spot is The Exposed. Soooo many people sent this one in. It’s the eye for me. It’s the giant eye for me. The ocean scares me enough already, I don’t need to see a child turning into a giant squid in my nightmares. Thanks, I hate it. And why does she still have a nose in the second to last drawing? I think that makes it worse. I’d rather her nose by fully gone by the second to last illustration. I will be having nightmares of a vaguely humanoid squid tonight.

Thus endeth our list! Though a special shout out goes to The Proposal. I just find it hilarious that the child chose to turn into a crusty white dog.

Thank you very much for joining me today, Book Nerds! Please tell me what Animorphs cover you think is the weirdest in the comments below. I want to know which ones have haunted your dreams. And with that, I shall bid you all adieu. I will see you all again next week with another new review. If you can’t wait that long then you can always give RHRML a follow over on Instagram (@ReadingHasRuinedMyLife). I post there almost daily so come back often to revel in literary goodness. You can also follow the blog on Twitter and BlueSky (@RHRMLBlog). If you want something not related to books then check out my podcast Nothing to See Hear. It stars me and two of my dearest friends as we talk everything and anything. We talk Disney, Scooby-Doo, bad 90s wrestling, cryptids, Barbie, and weird moments of history. You can listen to the show on Spotify and YouTube.

Until next time, stay safe, wash your hands, and read some good books for me.

See y'all then, bye!