Ranger's Apprentice Book 3: The Icebound Land

Title: Ranger's Apprentice Book 3: The Icebound Land
Author: John Flanagan
Rating: Three Guitars

Sizzilin' Summary:
Will and Evanlyn were captured, and taken across the sea to the land of Skandia. There, they are forced to be slaves. But then Will is turned into a warmweed addict, losing all of his will, and mind. The concerned Skandian who captured the two teens immediately doesn't like this, and helps the two escape to a hunting cabin in the mountains. It is winter, so there is no chance of discovery. But now Evanlyn has to get Will back to normal, before spring, when there is a high possibly of them being discovered. But will Evanlyn get Will back to normal, or are they both doomed?
Meanwhile, Halt is extremely worried about his apprentice. Duties are keeping him from keeping his promise of rescue to Will... so he gets himself banished for a year! He is immediately banned from the Ranger Corps, too. He uses this so he can go and get Will. But he isn't going alone. Will's friend Horace is coming along too. But in the land of Gallica, Horace's natural skill with a sword becomes well-known, and they fall into the clutches of an evil warlord living in the land who wants to use Halt for his own cruel purposes. He takes them captive to his castle, and takes their weapons. Will they escape this cruel man at all?

Rockin' Review:
This book was a low point in this series. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't exactly lovable. During a lot of the book, Will is out because of the warmweed addiction. During those parts, we mainly see through Evanlyn's eyes. The parts of book with Halt and Horace were pretty good, and we get to know Halt better, which I think is nice.
The thing that Mr. Flanagan actually did right was make us feel how terrible Will's warmweed addiction was. It made me horrified. I know good authors make their characters suffer, which he did during Will's slave life before the warmweed, but I believe it got too far when he made Will an addict. It basically made him a side character for the rest of the book! This is not a good idea to do with your Main Character. Totally not cool! I think the parts with Halt and Horace made up for this a bit, but this was still only an average book, and definitely not my favorite in this series.