Rowan and the Travelers, from Emily Rodda (Rowan of Rin #2)

Hi, there! I’m back with the review for the second volume of the Rowan of Rin series, by Emily Rodda: Rowan and the Travelers! You can already expect the review for the third book as well, haha!

from my Instagram 😀

The Story

Rowan is now known on his village as the Mountain hero, but he feels far from it. It is true that the boy learned how to handle his fears on his last adventure, but he never stopped being afraid at all. To make things worse, the Travelers, the nomadic people, are back after only one year after their last visit to Rin.

The villagers of Rin suspect that the Travelers found out about Rin’s new plantation, made of a Mountain berry that Allum, a half-Traveler and half-Rin villager brought back from their journey, and want to steal it. Things couldn’t be worse.

That is, until Sheba, Rin’s old mad witch, has a vision involving a great danger involving all of them. As no one else besides Rowan listens to the woman’s advertences, soon enough Rin is in a deep sleep and the only awaken people are Rowan and Allum.

Now they desperate need the help of the Travelers, but… Can they trust each other?

The Analysis

Just remembering that those were my impressions and opinion as a reader 🙂

I remembered only pieces of this book, so I was glued to my chair until I was finished with it, haha! Once again, I loved visiting Rin and spending some quality time with Rowan! This review will be short because of two reasons:

1. Rowan and the Travelers is a five stars book;
2. The basic structure of the book follows the previous book’s one.

The narrative style continues to be third person mainly focused on Rowan’s point of view, but with glimpses of other narrators. Rowan grows up so much from one book to another, but Rodda never forgets that he is just a boy, so it is wonderful.

The plot was more complex this time and had even more mystery than before. We are now introduced to the lands beyond Rin and the Mountain and to other people, like the Travelers and the people from Maris. As this is a re-read, I don’t know which part of my brain unconsciously remembered the plot twists and which part just guessed it, so I won’t try to analyze this aspect, haha!

As the travelers arrive, the reader meets new characters and has a chance to become closer with old ones. I decided that I really like John, Allum, Marlie and Sheba, haha! Also, I loved Zeel, she was so fearless! A good side kick to Rowan on this new adventure!

I still imagine Rowan as Ronan, the Grand Chase game character, by the way.

this fellow lol

As to Zeel, she was like a young Liv Tyler on my head. A girl can dream, right? Lol

The only thing that bothered me a bit on this volume is that Rodda seems to slow the story’s rhythm down in the beginning and I don’t understand why. Rowan is not being the overthinking type, but you feel that it is taking long to see anything happen, you know? And this is a problem in a book aimed for preadolescents 😦

I still loved the second volume of Rowan of Rin and I hold my ground that this is one of the best dystopian/fantasy books that I’ve ever read, though! If you like those genres, interesting characters, mystery and is not a fan of romance (that is non-existent on Rowan of Rin series so far), you have to give this series a go!

Thank you so much for reading! ❤ Have you ever read a book by Emily Rodda?