The Sorcerer of the North (Ranger's Apprentice #5) by John Flanagan

Book Synopsis:

Several years have passed since the apprentice and his master, Will and Halt, first met, and Will is finally a full-fledged Ranger with his own fief to look after. The fief seems sleepy—boring, even—until Lord Syron, master of a castle far in the north, is struck down by a mysterious illness. Joined by his friend Alyss, Will is suddenly thrown headfirst into an extraordinary adventure, investigating fears of sorcery and trying to determine who is loyal to Lord Syron. As Will battles growing hysteria, traitors, and most of all, time, Alyss is taken hostage, and Will is forced to make a desperate choice between his mission and his friend.

My Review:

4.5/5 stars. I enjoyed this installment, but it wasn't as good as some of the others. It took a while for the plot to get going, but once it picked up it held my attention the whole time. I loved the growth of existing characters and some of the new ones. However, like usual, I took issue with how Flanagan writes female characters.

Will, as always, was great. I love how quick-witted he is and how he can resolve conflicts with his words yet still make deadly shots if needed. This was shown off a lot early on. Since the book skips to four or five years after the last ones, Will has also grown into himself a lot.

The dog was a very adorable new character. She was so sweet and loyal. However, it was pretty unrealistic how smart and easily trained she was. It seems like all the animals in this series are insanely intelligent. I understand the Ranger horses being specially trained, but I find it hard to believe that this random dog Will finds so quickly learned his code words and hand signals, and that she somehow intuitively knew to be sneaky and alert. She was also abused previously, so she would probably have some sort of PTSD from that.

Another criticism I have is one I've talked about before that continued in this book. I hate how John Flanagan writes women. Every girl is described as something along the lines of "elegant and beautiful," and Will has to flirt with all of them. Then, when there is more than one girl in the room, the "less beautiful" of them start comparing themselves and getting jealous. It'd be one thing if one character was written this way, because girls like that do exist, but it's annoying that every female character is depicted as shallow and beautiful.

Complaints aside, this book was pretty engaging. For the first half, things moved slow and not much had happened, but the second half was much better. The plot was more interesting and had a nice mystery. The ending, especially, was very action-packed and made me excited to read book six.

Finally, another part I liked was Malcolm, a new character introduced in this book. I love him already. It's great that he gives people who were outcasts/rejected because of physical disability a place to belong. While he wasn't in this book much, I'm curious to see the role he plays going forward.

Content:

Language: b*tch, d*mn, God's name taken in vain, h*ll

Sexual Content: kisses, a mention of "bawdy" songs

Violence/Gore: blood, wounds

Drugs/Alcohol: mentions of people getting drunk at bars, people get poisoned