The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I loved the plot, the adventure, the fantasy and the execution of the story as a whole, but I have never had so much trouble finishing a story before this one. It took me 2 months to make it through this book and actually had to take an extended break from reading it, because my heart just wasn’t into it.
Having said that, I thoroughly enjoyed this fantastic story. It was very well structured and contained a great deal of detail that aided in the reader’s attempt to picture this world in their mind’s eye.
Unfortunately, as I just mentioned, the narration was so long winded that I could not get myself to read more than a chapter at a time. In particular, I found the writing style very cumbersome. On one hand, the author attempted to infuse an aspect of “cuteness” by adapting the prose to children’s reading level, but he then included very long run-on sentences that contained highly metaphorical descriptions. This made the reading experience quite a draining one at times.
Overall, I cannot and will not argue against a classic. It is an adventure that the reader lives through, instead of just reads about and the world the author created is without a doubt one to stay with the reader long after the story is finished.
