Book Review 2

Title: The Ranger’s Apprentice: The Icebound Land
Author: John Flanagan
Genre: Adventure

Summary:
Will, a Ranger’s apprentice, and Evanlyn, a princess in disguise, were kidnapped by a Viking named Erak and are bound on a journey to Skandia on a Viking wolfship. They are then thrust into a hard life of slavery. Meanwhile, Halt, who Will is apprenticed to, gets himself banished and kicked out from his country and the Rangers so that he can attempt to save Will. He is joined by Horace shortly after.

Will becomes addicted to warmweed, a drug, after he offended one of the more major slaves, Egon. The drug makes him lifeless and Erak, his captor, pitied him. Thus, Erak hatched a plot with Evanlyn and she rescues Will. Erak tried to lay a false trail leading to a sunken boat and the other Vikings knew nothing more.

Evanlyn leads the shambling and emaciated Will to the cabin which Erak told her about. She gradually helps Will to cope with his addiction by slowly decreasing his intake of warmweed. Eventually, Will recovered from the addiction and finally regained his ‘mind’. Halt and Horace are still yet to find them, though.

Reflection:
The Icebound Land may seem to be a childish and boring book at first sight, but when I read the first page, it seemed to me that I was transported to their world and following them on their journey.

The author portrays emotions with skill not many authors possess. He causes readers to feel a tumult of emotions for the characters. An instance is when Halt defied his King for the sake of Will. Halt seems to treat Will with affection comparable to that of a doting mother to her child. Words cannot illustrate the fatherly feelings he felt towards Will; it was very touching. Even though Will was not his child, merely an apprentice of his, yet he was so willing to give up so much for Will.

One other is when Will was firmly in the grasp of his warmweed addiction. I had a strong sense of pity for Will; a prospective young Ranger, now lifeless and a mere shadow of what he once was? It was so heartrending.

I felt pure admiration for Evanlyn when I read the chapters of the story where she rescued Will and took such good care of him as he slowly recovered. She was a princess; used to living a life of luxury, how could she cope with all this responsibility suddenly burdening on her? Unbelievably, she did it.
Therefore, I feel that this is such a great book that once you read the first page, it will be hard for you to forgo any suitable opportunity to read this book.

Valerie Lim