I've heard so much about this series, and mostly all positive reviews. I decided to try my hand and read it. It was...meh, now that I think about it. It was meh. 
 Plot: The plot was alright. The plot is about a boy named Will who is selected to be a Ranger's apprentice (as the title clearly states) and trains to become a Ranger under the guidance of Halt, the Ranger of his fiefdom. (Fiefdoms in their world are basically states in ours.) But something I hated about it was at the ending, (view spoiler)[we just get Alyss randomly kissing Will for no apparent reason (hide spoiler)]. That part (the one in spoilers) made NO SENSE and it came literally out of nowhere. There is NOWHERE in the text that gives away anything about that and it is really just something shoved onto you. I was literally like, "Wait, what? What the heck? Where did this come from? WHY DID WE NEED THIS?" There are also hardly any plot twists except at the very end, I suppose. Or in the middle (view spoiler)[when we find out that Halt was the one who hurt Morgarath the most (hide spoiler)]. But eh, it was kind of expected. 
 Characters: The characters were decent, I guess. I really only liked Halt, though. He was the only one that I even really cared for. I didn't care if Horace was going to get beaten up by Alda, Byrn and Jerome. I didn't care if Will was going to become a farmer in some strange place. I didn't care if Morgarath was targeting all the Barons or whatever. At the end of the day, the only character I cared about was Halt. 
 (Also, what's with the names? We later find out that Will's father was named Daniel, and I guess Jenny, Horace, and George are normal, but Halt, Gilan, and Alyss? And Alda? Why such different names? It would be interesting if the world was once divided into two parts where one part had normal names and the other had different names, but no. This is never explained.) 
 On top of that, I can list only three female characters in this ENTIRE BOOK. Jenny, Alyss, and Lady Pauline. Is it wrong to have a female Ranger? Can't girls be as good at stealth as boys, maybe even more so? All of the Rangers we know of are BOYS. Girls can fight too. And this isn't ever mentioned either, nor does Will, the "one with all the observant questions", ask about it. 
 Actually, scratch that. The character aspect is horrible. 
 Writing/Humor/Style: The writing here got a 3 for me. Mostly because the perspective kept seeming to shift and I could never tell what perspective the writing was in. Is it in Halt's? Or Baron Arald's? Or Will, who's supposedly the main character? Or is it Horace? We just never know. (The worst part of this was in a page where Sir Rodney invites Horace to go on a boar hunt, but then it AUTOMATICALLY shifts to Will's POV apparently without ANY BREAK WHATSOEVER.) It's just ugh with the perspectives. 
 As for the humor, there was only some. Mostly from Halt, though, which I liked. It was fine. Not great, not horrible, but fine. 
 And as for the pacing...oh god. I HATED THIS PART. 
 We only ACTUALLY see the Ruins of Gorlan 200-something pages into the book. Page 220-ish, I believe? Whatever. The point is, the title is hardly even talked about until page 205 or whatever. The beginning came wicked fast, but other than that, everything...in this...book...went...slowly... 
 Overall, I really wanted to like this book. But I just couldn't. The war was only just enough to get me to read The Burning Bridge. I just don't know about this series.