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Thursday, October 31, 2013

Challenge 7- The Hobbit Review


Title: The Hobbit
Author: J.R.R. Tolkien
Pages: 306
Version:  Paperback
Publisher: The Random House Publishing Group

What can I say about the Hobbit? It was absolutely amazing. I probably even enjoyed it more than Lord of the Rings which is really quite astounding to me. The Hobbit is much more fast paced and exciting compared to Lord of the Rings. It doesn't ever seem to drag on at any parts while Lord of the Rings definitely did. The overall story was very interesting and learning how Bilbo found the ring was quite cool to me. I love all of the dwarves as well, they are all very dynamic and unique. In addition, the interactions with the people that they meet along the way are fantastic. I really loved the whole section of meeting with Beorn in the forest. One thing that actually surprised me though was how little Smaug seemed to be in the book. He was obviously a major problem, yet it seemed to me he had come and gone so quickly. The biggest part of this book was definitely the journey, not really the final goal of the great wealth lying beneath the Lonely Mountain. Luckily, the journey was full of twists and turns and all kinds of exciting adventures. Having seen the first movie already before reading this, I did end up comparing it to the movie. It was strange how the crazy old wizard Radagast was in the movie quite a lot while he was simply mentioned once in the book. I thought it was really interesting to see that parallel and how Peter Jackson essentially took Beorn out of the movie and implemented Radagast instead and made an entirely new character. I am really excited to see the next movie when it comes out to find out what other things they decide to change and do differently. The book is beautifully written overall which is, perhaps, not surprising considering it is written by J.R.R. Tolkien. His talent to create this amazing world that is completely new and has such depth is absolutely astounding to me. I also greatly enjoyed the fact that Gandalf was in this book (and in fact, is on the cover of the version I read, shown above) considering he is my favorite character. The songs and poems that were carried along through Lord of the Rings as well were a nice touch and tie together of the books. I really like his poems and songs quite a lot. In fact, the Misty Mountain song at the beginning of the book translated over to the movie is absolutely incredible. I think they did a fantastic job of transferring that song from the book to an actual song and captured the whole mood of it very well. Overall, I strongly recommend this book to almost anyone, especially if you liked the movie. It really is fantastic and probably one of my favorite books that I have read in a long time.


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