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A review by stephen_delavue
The Lord of the Rings by Michael Bakewell, J.R.R. Tolkien, Brian Sibley
4.0
It's LOTR, Tolkien is the Father of Fantasy for a reason, but with that being said there are a few things in this book that didn't work for me. From a technical standpoint there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. Tolkien has a master class understanding of story structure, character work, and world building. But in certain places I feel that the book really suffered from its slower pacing and began to drag or even border upon the cusp of boredom. I'm talking specifically about their being very long descriptions of the environment for which they're in. I get it, they're outside and it's pretty. Can we please move on?
But I think that the most disappointing part of the book for me personally is Sauron himself. As a reader I love to latch onto villains for whatever reason, and they usually end up being some of my favorite characters; that wasn't the case with Sauron. I was expecting a sort of ultimate evil devil esque character in the same vein as Darkseid, but in the end he really didn't have much of a character outside of this abstract evil figure that we never officially meet. But again,this isn't a failure on Tolkien's part more of just my own personal preference. I'm just not a big fan of force of nature villains.
On a noncritical note: Sam and Frodo are gay for each other and I'm all for it. I will not be gaslit on this. Merry and Pippin have a close friendship. Legolass and Gimili have a close friendship. But, Sam and Frodo are so obviously gay for each other. The dude asked him to move in with him by the end. They were just roommates my ass. Rose was only their to give Sam a case of the not gays, because this book was written in the 40s.
I liked it, favorite chapter was the one where Denethor killed himself. That gave me big sads. I definitely recommend it, but you should probably break it into three parts otherwise it might burn you out. Also the bitter sweet ending is great.
But I think that the most disappointing part of the book for me personally is Sauron himself. As a reader I love to latch onto villains for whatever reason, and they usually end up being some of my favorite characters; that wasn't the case with Sauron. I was expecting a sort of ultimate evil devil esque character in the same vein as Darkseid, but in the end he really didn't have much of a character outside of this abstract evil figure that we never officially meet. But again,this isn't a failure on Tolkien's part more of just my own personal preference. I'm just not a big fan of force of nature villains.
On a noncritical note: Sam and Frodo are gay for each other and I'm all for it. I will not be gaslit on this. Merry and Pippin have a close friendship. Legolass and Gimili have a close friendship. But, Sam and Frodo are so obviously gay for each other. The dude asked him to move in with him by the end. They were just roommates my ass. Rose was only their to give Sam a case of the not gays, because this book was written in the 40s.
I liked it, favorite chapter was the one where Denethor killed himself. That gave me big sads. I definitely recommend it, but you should probably break it into three parts otherwise it might burn you out. Also the bitter sweet ending is great.