True, #1 is good exposition, but it's a lot of it. And tbh I never really got into Jake's narrative voice all that much. Everyone else has their own feel to it - Tobias' and Cassie's endless pontificating, Marco's humor and dream imagery, Rachel's "dear diary, today I ripped out someone's throat" matter-of-fact straightforward teenager vibe. Jake just...tells a story. I don't know. #16, #26 and #53 are pretty much the only books where Jake's voice really clicks for me.
#3, to me, is the start of series going "okay, this isn't just about aliens and warfare", where it goes from being a pretty straightforward adventure series to being a bit more about deconstructing the teenage superhero idea. Like, I can't imagine another series for that age range really pulling off a (pseudo?) suicide attempt and that many questions of identity in the third book. It also gives the Anis their first real win, and they don't really get a win again until the end of #7. I don't know, that one isn't story-progressing so much but I love the precedent it sets for the series.
#4...I can't do the talking whales. It has some great scenes in it, and yes, AX!, but he doesn't really show up till the end and a lot of it is badly-defined Cassie angsting about responsibility, which would work better if they pressed that character trait a bit further, but they never did.
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#3, to me, is the start of series going "okay, this isn't just about aliens and warfare", where it goes from being a pretty straightforward adventure series to being a bit more about deconstructing the teenage superhero idea. Like, I can't imagine another series for that age range really pulling off a (pseudo?) suicide attempt and that many questions of identity in the third book. It also gives the Anis their first real win, and they don't really get a win again until the end of #7. I don't know, that one isn't story-progressing so much but I love the precedent it sets for the series.
#4...I can't do the talking whales. It has some great scenes in it, and yes, AX!, but he doesn't really show up till the end and a lot of it is badly-defined Cassie angsting about responsibility, which would work better if they pressed that character trait a bit further, but they never did.