Title: The Lord of the Rings trilogy (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King)
Author: J.R.R. Tolkien
# of Pages: 1,008
Genre: Classic Fantasy
You might have noticed that I haven’t done a book review post in a LOOOONG time. Well, it’s because it took me a LOOOONG time to finish this trilogy, and I didn’t want to review it until I’d read all three of the books. Like most classic books that I’ve read, there were moments when I had to force myself to keep reading through all the heavy descriptions and confusing passages; there were also moments when I couldn’t put the books down because I couldn’t wait to see what happened next. All in all, upon finishing, I felt as I usually do when I finish a classic: really glad that I’d read it, and just a little bit glad to have it over with (but, at the same time, a little sad when the whole experience was over because it meant that I could never have the thrill of reading it for the very first time ever again).
Since I’m assuming that the vast majority of the general population is familiar with the basic storyline due to the monstrous success the movies had, I will defer from putting up a summary of what they’re about. But I will say this: now that I’ve read this whole series, I’m REALLY disappointed with the way they ended the third movie because they cut out one of the AWESOMEST parts of the whole trilogy. I mean, the movie was already over three hours long–what would an extra half an hour have hurt?
Although Tolkien can often get wordy and completely bogged down with seemingly endless descriptions of landscapes, the trilogy is, overall, a must-read–not only is it some of the most fantastically imagined and executed fantasy writing of all time, it also has a lot of intellectual meat to it that will keep you pondering long after the last page has been read.
My Rating: 4.5 stars