The Ranger's Apprentice: The Ruins of Gorlan

Author: John Flanagan
Back-of-the-Book Description: Like the other 15-year-old wards of Castle Redmont, Will is nervous about Choosing Day, when each of them will be assigned to a different master for training. Though his dearest wish is to enter the Battleschool, his small stature prevents it. Instead, Will is apprenticed to the grim-faced, mysterious Ranger. Soon Will learns that becoming a ranger is more difficult, dangerous, and worthwhile than he had imagined. He earns the respect of his elders and the friendship of a former foe, but all this is prelude to the great adventure that follows, when his skills wielding a knife and keeping a heightened awareness of his surroundings become vital to the survival of his mentor and the safety of the kingdom.
My Description: Have you ever heard the saying 'Don't judge a book by it's cover'? It applies here. The cover made me think this book would be dark... I read the description, and it actually sounded interesting, so I decided to give it a go...

This book is not dark. It's suspenseful, interesting, exciting, but it's not dark. It was wonderful to get a book that started light-hearted, and ended light hearted... not only was it light hearted, but it had Justice. Often in stories, when something happens to a character and people think badly of him/her when it's not their fault the author just leaves it like that, or the bad characters get away with whatever they were doing... I HATE that... but it doesn't happen in this book; there was justice to some pretty bad characters in this story that made me literally giggle with glee.

The Ranger, Halt--Will's mentor--was a really awesome character. He reminded me of Brom, from Eragon. He was so... cool. I had the best time reading about him, and his relationships with other characters was cool too. But now I'm paranoid that he's going to die in the last book of this series... I don't want him to die! He's too awesome to die! Please don't kill him off, Mr. Flanagan!

A good deal of time was spent describing the other wards that Will spent his time with before he was apprenticed, but they didn't show up much after he became a Ranger--with the exception of Horace. It would have been nice if there hand been more with them, but I suppose they'll show up more in other books.

Mr. Flanagan spent a good deal of time in the middle of the book going into Horace's perspective, and I really liked that, but at the last third of the book we didn't go to his perspective anymore, and I would have liked to have seen more of him.

Will and Alys (I hope I spelled that right... much apologies if I didn't) getting together made sense, and I suspected it would happen, but I would have liked more time to get to know Alys... she doesn't show up all that much in the story, and as a result I don't know her character that well, even though Will does. I would have liked it if either more time had been spent on that, or if Mr. Flanagan had waited a few books before it happened.

This book isn't actually a 'comedy', but the way the characters interact with each other, and things they say made me smile a few times. There were also a couple points in the writing of the story that were silly as well, but I wouldn't say it was a comedy exactly, so I didn't add the label. Just know that you will smile now and then when you read this book.

Anyways, all in all this is a wonderful story and I highly recommend it(I've already got the second!)!
Pages: 272
Recommendations: To both boys and girls 10 and up, or a family reading together.
Writing Rating: 7
Story Rating: 8
Overall Rating: 8



Book #3 of '09, Book #53 of all.