The Book of Three Review

Title: The Book of Three
Author: Lloyd Alexander
Pages: 224
Version: Paperback
Publisher: Random House, Inc.

I've finished The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander! I liked it a lot. I decided to read it while waiting for Wool to come in at the library. I needed a book to read and it was laying in my brother's room so I thought, why not? It turned out to be the perfect length for me to read while waiting because I finished it right around when my book came in. It's a story about about an assistant pig-keeper who ends up on a long journey after the pig runs away. Taran (the assistant pig-keeper and main character) winds up running into people along the way and goes on many adventures with them. From getting captured by evil lady Achren to getting sucked into a lake by dwarves, Taran experiences many crazy things along the way. So I really enjoyed this book. It's not very long at all, probably took me around 4 days to read when I didn't even read it for long amounts of time. For the amount of things that happen in the book, I'd say it's quite short. The characters were all very good and the story is well written. This specific cover is the one that I have on my book and I think it's rather nice. This story was extremely similar to Lord of the Rings to me. I noticed it very quickly while I was reading it. The pig escapes, sending Taran on a journey much like the ring sends Frodo on a journey. Gwydion is sort of a mixture of Gandalf and Aragorn. There is an evil sort of king, Arawn, of the dark land of Annuvin much like Sauron and Mordor. There is a lesser evil that has her own castle, Achren which I compare to Sarumon. In addition, the horned king (shown on the cover) and his riders remind me much of the Nazgûl in Lord of the Rings. Also, Gurgi is quite reminiscent of Golem except not as sinister. I was just drawing parallels between the two books most of the time. That being said, it is a different story and I enjoyed it all the same. It's very fantastic and epic and the story is really nice. For me, the story got better as it went on. It started great and got much better by the end. I would recommend this book if you like books like Lord of the Rings type of epic fantasy books.