“The Hobbit” – A Review

Recently, I finished The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. I thought a review might be in order (especially because I haven’t posted anything in such a long while here), so here it is. 

*Note: I’ll try to keep the spoilers to a minimum. They will be in a TV Tropes-style (font color the same color as the background, so that you’ll need to select it with your mouse in order to read it)

Summary:  Tolkien’s The Hobbit, or There and Back Again is the prequel to the ever-popular Lord of the Rings trilogy. The plot focuses on Bilbo Baggins, a respectable hobbit who lives in the quiet place of Bag-End. His life is as ordinary as any other hobbit’s, until the day that the great wizard Gandalf takes interest in him, and deems him the perfect burglar for the dwarves’ mission to reclaim their leader, Thorin’s, rightful treasure that was stolen by the dragon Smaug. 

Characters: Hmm. 4 1/2 out of 5 stars. I mean, a lot of the time, I couldn’t keep all of the dwarves’ names straight; there were a ton of characters, however, and I loved each of them dearly, especially my poor, poor hobbit Bilbo Baggins. 

Plot: 3 out of 5, I must say. It took quite a while to get into it (many books seem to have this problem), but when I was in, I loved it. As with much fiction, a certain willing suspension of disbelief is required, especially when it came to the defeat of Smaug the Dragon, Bilbo’s uncanny combat skills, or even just the plain wit and dumb luck that Bilbo seems to constantly be in possession of. 

Critiques: The journey home was a huge annoyance to me, definitely. I didn’t like how Tolkien summarized their adventure back with only a sentence or two when the journey there took up more than half of the book. Some other points in the story were a bit too summarized for my tastes, and some parts of their adventure, namely the defeat of Smaug, which was supposed to be this huge challenge for them, seemed rushed/too easy. But I didn’t really have much bad to say about this book. 

Overall Thoughts: I was really rather fond of it, all things considered. I am still to engrossed by my dear Mr. Baggins that I fear moving on to The Fellowship of the Ring, in case I’m not as fond of his nephew, Frodo Baggins. Characters were well thought-out, even if there were tons of them, and the plot was solid. A great read, albeit a slow one. 

Final Words: All in all, a fantastic read. Definitely reccomended to anyone with an interest in must-read classics or sci-fi/fantasy genres. 

Final rating: 4 out of 5.

In other news, expect a report on Script Frenzy from me rather soon. 

Lots of love, 

Fee<3