The first time I attempted to read
The Hobbit, I failed after one page. I don't know what it was, but I learned the same thing happened to some of my friends when they tried to read it. This time I had downloaded it for free from Kindle Unlimited, which is $10 a month and you can then download for free any of amazon's qualifying books. It's amazing for people who read a lot because you can quickly earn back what you spent if you read enough.
I was about to leave for Budapest and was downloading everything I could for free onto my kindle.
The Hobbit was one of them, as well as
Fall In One Day from netgalley which I just reviewed. I decided to give it a chance again and this time I was successful.
Brief summary: Bilbo Baggins is hired to help dwarves steal back their treasure that has been taken over by a dragon. They must journey through forests and mountains and first make it their alive though.
I'm assuming the majority of you know what The Hobbit is about so that was a very simplified summary of what this book is.
Once you get into the book and past the beginning, it's super action packed and keeps you enthralled. I ended up finishing The Hobbit in one day! Bilbo's story is in one book while Frodo's was in three, so it's much faster than The Lord of the Rings (I've just read the first so far! I'll do a review of the whole trilogy when I finish it I think!).
Tolkien's writing style is fantastic in this if you ask me. He truly creates a world and thought about everything, the languages and the history. I think a lot of newer high fantasy stories fall short of creating the entire world their stories take place in, but Tolkien truly created Middle Earth. It's incredibly admirable when you think about just how much had to be thought of.
I loved the quirkiness and the way the book was narrated. I think Bilbo is a very relatable character because he wants peace, but also craves adventure. That is me so much where I want a memorable life, but sometimes I just want to lay in bed with a cup of coffee and a book. However, Bilbo was able to leave his comfort zone and find those adventures. Sometimes you just have to take a risk.
Slight spoiler ahead!!! Skip to where it says spoiler ended if you don't want to know anything!
I also loved that this had a happy ending, but not an unrealistic one where it's too happy. For God's sake there was a deadly dragon and a battle, how can everybody survive that?!
Spoiler Ended!
This was also much better than the movies. They tried to add too much to make it into three movies and after reading the book, I preferred it a lot more. Gandalf's weird relationship with Galandriel is taken out. Legolas is not in this. That brunette elf is not in the book nor a dwarf-elf romance.
Middle Earth is just an incredible fantasy world to explore and I really look forward to finishing The Lord of the Rings.
My Tolkien criticism is that there are no strong female characters. The movies had to add them in or make the female characters more important than they ever were in the books. I think this is the one big fault and while it shouldn't be overlooked, you still have to look at the time period that Tolkien wrote in. There are many better feminist books to be read, but I still say Tolkien is an important literary figure to study. We just have to acknowledge the misogynistic aspects. No book written during his time would be 100% politically correct and so we can't expect Tolkien to be.
Anyways...
This is a world that set the example for hundreds (probably thousands) of other high fantasy books, I believe Tolkien is a must read for any fantasy lover. You don't have to love the series or even like it, but Middle Earth was one of the first high fantasy worlds and so many other famous authors have been inspired by it. I think it's just important to understand the history of this genre and reading Tolkien is a way to do so.
I ended up enjoying
The Hobbit much more than I thought I would and I highly recommend it to you all!
