Flanagan, John. The Burning Bridge. New York, NY: Puffin Books, 2005. Print.
262 pages.
Reviewed by J. d'Artagnan Love
The Burning Bridge picks up right where the Ruins of Gorlan left off. Morgarath is planning for a war with the kingdom and Will and Halt are following the trail. Spoiler alert, as the title suggests, Morgarath built a bridge and Will burns it down. The end.
I want so badly to like this series. People in my life cherish it, but I just did not enjoy this book. The descriptions of battle practice were long and monotonous and there was an obvious subtle misogyny underscoring the entire story.
The portrayal of women and girls in this series just infuriates me. If there was a woman ranger, I'd be all about it, but the women in this series all have soft roles--negotiator and cook (barf). Women in leadership roles in the kingdom are spoken to rudely and treated as if incompetent. Don't forget a nice dose of mansplaining as the cherry on top. Here's an example:
"I'll speak of her, all right! I'll tell you this. She's a woman meddling in a man's world, where she has no place. She should have found a husband years ago and raised a brood of squalling babies. Surely there's a deaf and half-blind man somewhere who would have ten her" (93).
The worst part of this dialogue? Nowhere does anyone defend Pauline, the woman being spoken of and nowhere is this attitude refuted as despicable or even questionable.
This book's target audience is boys age 10-12. If I had a son who wanted to read this series, I would let him because I'm anti-book banning BUT we would have a SERIOUS conversation about the toxic masculinity represented in these stories.
Would I read it again?
NOPE
Recommended for:
Maybe someone in gender studies looking for a series that overtly teaches young boys toxic masculinity.
Not Recommended for:
Pretty much most decent human beings.
Word Bank (new-to-me vocabulary)
- cowl (p. 59)
- fenlands (p. 11)
- nocked (p. 82)
- recurve (p. 82)
- saxe (p. 41)
- sintered (p. 51)
- spurious (p. 93)
- tarpaulin (p. 68)
- triumvirate (p. 16)
1 star out of 5.
John Flanagan's website: http://www.worldofjohnflanagan.com/
Previous Ranger's Apprentice books reviewed
The Ruins of Gorlan: http://thewritereader.blogspot.com/2017/08/108-rangers-apprentice-ruins-if-golan.html
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