De grijze jager is een Young Adult fantasie verhaal. Het gaat over Will die een weeskind is met een droom om ridder te worden net zoals zijn overleden vader. Maar dat lukt niet, en in plaats daarvan is hij gekozen om grijze jager te worden - een soort kruising tussen spion en geheime politie, maar op paard en met pilj en boog.

Flanagan heeft een heel specifieke schrijfstijl. Alles is langzaam en zeer grondig beschreven. De scène in het boek waarin Will is uitgekozen, bij voorbeeld, neemt op zichzelf ongeveer tachtig pagina's van het boek in beslag, of tenminste het voelt alsof dat het geval is.

In het begin dit maakt het moeilijk in het boek te komen. Alles duurt zo lang en is zo traag. Maar later, omdat we hebben de personages echt leren kennen, de impact is des te groter als iets belangrijk (eindelijk) gebeurt. Dat was de grootste pluspunt van het boek. Flanagan wist echt hoe je te laten voelen voor zijn personages, ook al als dat duurt een tijdje.

It has been a year since I read the sixth book in the Ranger's Apprentice series and since I was looking for an Australian author to read for the Southern Hemisphere reading challenge, it seemed the perfect moment to pick this series up.

For this book I've made the change from reading it in Dutch, to English. This caused little problems (it took me quite some time to realize that Horace is Arnaut from the Dutch books), but after some initial confusion it was a good read.

Because of the time between the books, I wasn't bothered too much with the weird chronology in this part of the series (book 7 takes place before books 5 and 6). Apparently, John Flanagan decided he had left out some of Will's story and just added it later.

So, Erak's Ransom takes place just before Will becomes a real Ranger, and he will need everything he has learned when they venture into the desert to save an old friend, Erak, who's been captured.

I quite liked the story of this one. I felt that, compared for example with book six, more things happened and there was more suspense (though it was limited a little bit with the fact that this book takes place earlier). Will however annoyed me a little as he is turning more and more in the special snowflake one who is the only one who can solve things and is also the one who is always right. I like my main characters slightly more flawed.

Looking forward to the next book!

Read also my reviews for the rest of series:

The Ruins of Gorlan (The Ranger's Apprentice #1)

The Burning Bridge (The Ranger's Apprentice #2)

The Icebound Land (The Ranger's Apprentice #3)

The Battle for Skandia (The Ranger's Apprentice #4)

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

The Siege of Macindaw (Ranger's Apprentice #6)

Enjoyed reading this book, mostly because I read the rest of the series. I can tell that it wouldn't be as exciting to someone who is new to Ranger's Apprentice series, too many in-jokes. But pretty good, all in all. I only skimmed two sections - one scene of one of the characters sneaking into a castle and another scene where Flanagan described how a jousting tournament worked in his world.

I thought the ending was disappointing.

Ranger's Apprentice is definitely one of the better YA series.

Because of the Ranger's Apprentice Day I recently attended with my youngest sister (and the following meet-and-greet with the author; you can read more about that here) I decided it was time to read more books in the Ranger's Apprentice series and start where I left off.

The Siege of Macindaw is the sixth instalment of the series and forms one story together with the fifth book. The main thing happening in this book is the actual siege.

I was a little bit disappointed that it turned out to be almost solely about the siege. It's a 300-page read and it reads very fast, but focussing so much on this one event made it really feel like a middle book. In the end, not that much happens at all.

Also I didn't remember just how much these books are focussed on younger readers. The hero's are all very heroic and they are sure very smart/strong/overall awesome. The main villain was mostly mean.

I hope I'll like the next book in the series better.

You can also read my reviews for the rest of the books in the series:

The Ruins of Gorlan

The Burning Bridge

The Icebound Land

The Battle For Skandia / Oakleaf Bearers

The Sorceror of the North

Last year I visited the Ranger's Apprentice Day for the first time together with my younger sister who's a great fan of John Flanagan's book series. It started four years ago with one day to celebrate the series, which is hugely popular in the Dutch/Flemish speaking world. Due to the enormous popularity last year there were two days, one in the Prehistoric/Roman/Medieval museum Archeon (Alphen aan den Rijn, NL) and one in Aarschot (BE) which we visited.

This year Ranger's Apprentice Day has grown even more and it was now two days in the Archeon and another one is planned in Belgium in August. It was even more spectacular as the author had flown all the way from Australia to watch the Eurovision to attend.

The weather was wonderful (although I got sunburned) and covered in our homemade (well, my aunt made them) camouflage cloaks we got an even bigger surprise. It happened that my sister had found one of the Golden tickets (there were 50 for 2000 fans) which meant we got to go to the Meet & Greet with John Flanagan. Which was naturally awesome! My sister got the latest book of the series autographed, we all took pictures and we got complemented on our cloaks. It was, needless to say, a great experience.

In case you're wondering. 'De Grijze Jager' is the Dutch (not quite literal) translation of The Ranger's Apprentice

The rest of the day was very nice as well. We could shoot with bow and arrow, there was a knight's tournament and a lot more. It did me feel guilty for still not having finished the series. (The same happened last year, but I read perhaps one additional book). And I really like the books, that's the worst of it. And I read 200 books a year. I really hope and plan to have the rest of the series, and possibly the first books of Brotherband as well, read by this time next year. Because it looks like we'll be attending more Ranger's Apprentice Days...

Catch up on the reviews I wrote for the first books in the Ranger's Apprentice series (hopefully, more to follow soon)...

The Ruins of Gorlan

The Burning Bridge

The Icebound Land

The Battle For Skandia / Oakleaf Bearers

The Sorceror of the North