Reviews

The Return of the King, by J.R.R. Tolkien

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kieralesley's review against another edition

3.0

Finished! Read the entire Lord of the Rings and am no longer a geek embarrassment. I think I probably liked this book least of the trilogy - I really enjoyed Fellowship and the Two Towers. Return of the King certainly had its moments - Eowyn slaying the Witch King, Frodo on Sam standing on the side of Mount Doom as it collapses in fire and lava but still not quite ready to give up, Sam just generally being the most loyal and wonderful thing ever? But I found it a bit uneven pacing-wise. This is probably a product of being used to more modern novel structures, but I found the end was overly long and, in places, strange - the whole Saruman thing for example? It also just didn't have as much of a romp to it as the previous books, which makes sense considering this is the big war book.

I really enjoyed this read though and I'm glad I finally "get" Lord of the Rings. Classic books are the ones that, even when you know how it goes, are still able to move you and still have power. Lord of the Rings is certainly a classic and one I'll be reading again in a few years, I'm sure.

gon8go's review against another edition

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5.0

Do the world fantasy awards have a category for longest ending?
If so this is a clear winner, Frodo was throwing the ring into mount doom and there were nearly a hundred pages left. Still amazing!

Reading this at 45 makes me wish I’d read it as a young teen, it would have made a big impact. The books that really got me were sci-fi and so I was never a fantasy guy, I’m rethinking that now.

The story and characters are great but the little snips of lore really drew me in, this feels like a labour of love by the author and I’m even considering reading the silmarillion.

leighanneslit's review against another edition

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5.0

And the shadow continues to stretch from Mordor all the way across Middle-Earth as the Ring Bearer gets closer to his destination.
The climax of this book was phenomenal. The dark tower falls and lightness comes back to the land. The events leading up to this, the battle in Gondor and the procession up to the black gates was amazing to read. Parts of this did drag though, for example, Frodo and Sam's trip through Mordor dragged, but I think that had to do with the fact that I was so ready to get to the climax. Oh, and of course, Gollum's wretched character played his part in that.
Much of the last half of the book was dedicated to wrapping up loose ends. With Aragorn and Gandalf and of course, our hobbit friends. A lot has gone down in the Shire in the time they've been gone and a lot of the last half of this describes those events.

The series was amazing. Of course, at times it dragged, and Tolkien is wordy, but that didn't take away from this masterpiece of a trilogy. I think that to fully get it, its going to take several rereads later on, but I highly recommend this series to everyone and I honestly think that anyone who reads science fiction, or classic literature in general should READ THESE BOOKS, not just watch the movies, because you get so much more from them by reading the books. I give this piece of the trilogy, and the trilogy as a whole a 5 out of 5.