Reviews

یاران حلقه by J.R.R. Tolkien

lavenderminty's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful inspiring tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

nolaaa's review against another edition

adventurous challenging hopeful inspiring slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

maddie_quinn's review against another edition

2.0

I wanted to love this book. It really seems like my type of book and I have been waiting years to read it... but I did not enjoy it. I felt like nothing happened (OH NO BIG EVENT jk it's all good, repeat.) and I had to force myself to keep reading it. I was so sure something will eventually pull me in, but it was slow and boring and I don't even like Frodo. A few characters are good but I don't LOVE any of them. The whole time I was just wishing for more Bilbo action (oddly enough I loved The Hobbit.)

evilwoman's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious relaxing slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

authorcagray's review against another edition

4.0

Of course this is one of the all-time classics, and one of my favorite movies. Yet this is only the second time I've read (this time listened to) the book. I remember why: The Lord of the Rings are more atmospheric than anything else, I feel like. The stories are long, much longer than they need to be, and filled with lots of redundancies or unnecessary additions. I could certainly do without all the songs, and there's so much encountering and running away from various types of danger that I could (and did) tune out a number of times and then tune back in without missing anything. I don't typically read high fantasy set in alternate worlds for exactly that reason: I find the genre overall to be all atmosphere with very little characterization. But I love the atmosphere conjured by the Lord of the Rings so very much. It feels so much like something from my childhood, even though I read it for the first time as an adult. I think some of that is because I did read the Chronicles of Narnia as a child, and I can see how much either C.S. Lewis influenced Tolkien, or vice versa. I can just picture the two of them sitting in front of Lewis's fire and taking turns reading their works in progress to one another, each of them chuckling when they saw moments where the other had stolen from him. What an experience that must have been!

brattyjedi's review against another edition

It took me three or four tries over more than a decade to finally make it through this book. It starts off half-way interesting and then just drags before finally getting half-way interesting again. I only made it through this time because I was required to as I will be teaching this book to high school students in summer reading classes. I can see some of the contributions Tolkien made to the genre of Fantasy (though I think saying he created the genre is giving him too much credit) and can understand the import there and I can see why others might find these books to be good, but to me the few interesting bits aren't good enough to make up for the exceptionally boring bits and I have no interest in reading the remainder of the series.

kamiga5's review against another edition

3.0

I wanted to love this so bad but I just didn’t. The beginning was great and pushed me to pause and go back to read The Hobbit (which I loved). But after the birthday party it got really dull and there was little to no action or peril for at least 150 pages. The part at Rivendell was interesting only because we got a huge info dump (which was still a little disappointing because it was just us being told stuff rather than experiencing it). Honestly, my rating is generous just because of how much I wanted to love it and just because it is LOTR.. it was so hard to push through, though. However, I am really looking forward to watching the movie again after having not seen it for 10 years (I remember literally nothing).

Update post movie: Wow... the movie is like... 1000x better than the book which literally never happens. It made such valuable additions like the fact that putting the ring on makes the wearer “sensible” to the Ring Wraiths/Sauron/etc. which makes sooooo much sense and should have been in the book. Otherwise, there is no consequence to putting the ring on from time to time. Also, I really appreciated getting to see the events turn sour between Gandalf and Sarumon at the start of the movie rather than being told about it later (re: info dump at Rivendell). I also couldn’t believe when “You shall not pass!!” was not in the book (he says “You cannot pass”), I was like wait, is it in the 2nd or 3rd book? But no, it was invented for the movie which blows my mind that such an iconic line was the doing of the movie and not the original text.
The pace is just overall so much better in the movie than the book. Tolkien’s nature descriptions are great and all but plot>nature descriptions and the movie prevailed here.
It’s insane how much I LOVED the movie and was very, very meh about the book because like I said, the movie is never better than the book!! Bravo to Peter Jackson for this masterpiece.. I am going to push myself to read Two Towers and Return of the King just so I can watch those movies!
Final thought- Sarumon’s look in the movie is just

pankaplan's review against another edition

4.0

První a poslední fantasy série, kterou jsem si užíval od první do poslední stránky. Skvělý příběh, fantastický svět a vypravěčské umění, které se nevídá v každé knize.

wutheringreader's review against another edition

4.0

3.75

sam gamgee: an international treasure

this book is just... jolly. i don't know how to describe it but it was a really fun time--i love the characters and i love middle-earth!!! it does get slow at times, but i adored all the songs and the weird languages.

bibliotea's review against another edition

5.0

Even though I found the first half of this book quite difficult to get through, it is so well done and detailed that I really did enjoy it in the end. The second half pulled at my emotions and I almost cried at some points (resisting mainly, I think, from stubbornness).

I am so glad I decided to give it another go and I can now say that this book is better than the movie.