The Fellowship Of The Ring - a book review

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 I'm finally reading the books I stare at in the living room. Let's dive into The Lord of the Rings trilogy.


These are my husband's books. Because of that, I acquired see-through sticky notes to annotate the book. I'm not allowed to write directly on the page. I highly reccommend using these sticky notes, as they make the book look nice, but allow annotation to happen. 

This is the first book of the trilogy, where Frodo acquires the ring from Bilbo and they find out it's the One Ring. It begins in the shire and is a lot of travel - and running from dark riders. 

Thoughts

The dark riders are a big problem. They can smell the ring on Frodo. The ring also wants to be found, so when they come around the urge to put on the ring is amped to 11 out of 10. The second time we see one, it is crawling towards Frodo and the hobbits (while they are hiding in the woods). It was almost game over and we haven't reached Rivendell. Frodo was lucky the elves were traveling that path. 

The prologue of this book sounds like someone over-prepared for Dungeons and Dragons. I think Tolkien would have loved DnD. Personally, I imagine he'd be the Dungeon Master/Game Master to take a month to write the setting, or even a year. He'd be DMing an epic game lasting years and years. That sounds amazing to me. 

One thing to note is the use of songs - without any type of tune noted. Unfortunately, you have to guess the tune. Some audiobooks do this better than others. For example, Andy Serkis did great with Tom Bombadil, but really botched Frodo singing in The Prancing Pony. People have sung them well, but maybe you should read that part yourself before listening to someone sing fifteen verses of a bar song off-key.  

Boromir should have been left in Rivendell. I'm dying on this hill. He's whiny, suggests using the ring at the council, and has a lot of red flags. I'm not kidding. He has red flags from the council onward, the red flags getting bigger as we reach Lothlorien. His eyes get a ravenous gleam and he proves me right at the end of the first book. He should have been left in Rivendell. He only wanted power and you could see it the minute he clapped eyes on that ring. 


The quote above made me cry. Galadriel speaks it as she gives a gift to Frodo. I didn't expect to be overcome by emotion, but I was. Also, the elves have some pretty relevant quotes that could easily apply to our current world. The only thing is that they can retreat from the world they don't trust and we can't. After finishing this book, I have a new favorite book quote, right up there with the Lewis Carroll quote from Through The Looking Glass (the part where Alice finds her crown). 

Conclusions

I loved this book. Five stars, will continue the series. I'm glad I gave it my attention and marked those quotes I loved (with my special sticky notes). I'm going to compare the movie and book in a separate blog. 

Cheers and God Bless! May we be a light in dark places, to all that need Jesus' light. 

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Bonus! Let's have some fun with behind-the-scenes pictures. According to the picture below, give me a six word story. And......Go! Put your stories in the comments. 




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Morrow is released! This novella is the story of two women writing a family history for the Morrow family. They find a nasty secret while researching. Will they survive their internship? 

Sign up for my newsletter at this link to get a free first chapter. All you need to plug in is your email. You'll also get a free first chapter of Wrenville, my first novel. 


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