Book Review – The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (3.5 stars)

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Title: The Hobbit

Author: J.R.R. Tolkien

Published: 2014 – HarperCollins (originally 21^st of September, 1937)

Format: Paperback, Movie tie-in edition – 389 pages

“There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.” – The Hobbit

Hello Hello! How are you?

Today I’m bringing you a new review, even though I should probably be reading as fast as my eyes can go to reach my goals for August aha. So far, I’ve got a lot of books on the go, but I think I have already finished 3 books on my August TBR and an extra one from last month!

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien has been on my list to read for years, unfortunately, for quite a long time, I was under the impression that anything that had as many ratings, reviews and ravings as The Lord of the Rings series and the Harry Potter series would probably not be my cup of tea, but I was quite wrong. I read all the Harry Potter books a few years ago and fell in love with them, and now that I’ve read The Hobbit, I really want to give the Lord of the Rings a go, and hopefully be able to watch all the movies now!

Noly from The Artsy Reader and I have had this book on our Hype-A-Thon Readathon TBR since June for #JourneyJune, and it has taken us until this past week to finish it, oops. We did, however, manage to accomplish it and we had fun reading it, so keep on reading for my thoughts on this book!

GOODREADS SYNOPSIS

Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely travelling further than the pantry of his hobbit-hole in Bag End. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard, Gandalf, and a company of thirteen dwarves arrive on his doorstep to whisk him away on a journey “there and back again”. They have a plot to raid the treasure hoard of Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very dangerous dragon…

MY REVIEW

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien is a classic fantasy novel, which is also the prequel to the very famous Lord of the Rings series written by the same author. In this book, we meet Bilbo Baggins, a little hobbit living in his hobbit-hole, and Gandalf, who arrives one morning on his doorstep and tells him that he needs him for an adventure. We chose this book for #JourneyJune and it did take us a really long time to eventually get to it and finish it, but I think that both Noly and myself ended up enjoying it. It’s not our usual book we would go for, it’s very different, but it has got an enormous amount of adventure, Bilbo Baggins is a funny, unique and sweet character, there is a treasure hunt, goblins, wolves, eagles, elves, dwarves, a wizard, a dragon and a hobbit, and I definitely had a fun time reading it.

The one thing I will say which sort of cooled my enjoyment of it was the length of the chapters and the amount of waffle. I don’t usually like books with long chapters, and if I see a book has longer chapters that average, I will either keep pushing it back on my TBR or force my way through it. This one was sort of a mix of both, because I pushed it back for ages, and there were definitely times I was struggling. The first chapter was cool though and I got the impression that the whole book was going to be quite long, drawn-out, detailed and full of waffle, so I was ready for it every time we read a new chapter.

I think this book is a really unique one. In part, I think the amount of waffle, detail and description is due to the time period in which it was written as books back then were very language heavy with old-fashioned structures, and generally long and boring for most people nowadays. This book wasn’t really boring, but at times I wanted to skip forward because it dragged. However, because of this, I think I now have very vivid imagery of the whole book and everything that happened and could probably play the whole “book in brain film” back with no problem at all.

It sounds like I didn’t really enjoy this book, but aside from the language, waffle, length of chapters and maybe just general old-fashioned-ness, it was a great book. I really loved the adventurous feel from every single chapter. The chapters are long, but I think that this gives an impression that every new thing is a quest or an adventure, and you could almost split this book up into small ones for children and it would be so fun! I don’t think it’s the type of book very young children could read because I was personally a bit bored at times and I’m used to reading waffle for university, so that’s saying something aha!

The dwarves were funny little things and I didn’t really feel a connection to them, other than they made me laugh and helped Bilbo get forward at times. I did, however, absolutely love both Bilbo and Gandalf, and I actually never really knew where this book was going. I read a lot of fantasy and can usually guess what is going to happen, but this was a surprise to me at every new twist and turn. I wouldn’t say it’s a particularly plot-twisty, “ohmygod” type of book, because before you start it, you sort of know what’s going to happen, but I think the way it happens and how you read it makes this book special.

I feel like now I’m waffling, aha, I shall probably have to stop soon! The world-building was really good though, everything was vivid in my mind and minus the enormous amount of detail about rocks and trees and mist and leaves, it was very enjoyable to watch these characters cross the whole of their world to get to the dragon and the mountain, especially with all the adventures, struggles, fights and scary moments they had on the way. It was a really fun book, and I’m very glad that I read it.

“There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” – The Hobbit

MY THOUGHTS AND RATING

Overall, this was a great book, not my favourite, and I think it needs to be reread again just to get everything from it, but I definitely had fun and it will be stuck in my brain for a while. I am a bit sceptical about the Lord of the Rings books because I have been told there is even more waffle, but I will soon try to tackle them!

I think this is a great book to read as an adult, but also with children, it’s a bit on the long-winded side so it may bore younger children, but I think a chapter every now and then could be a fun thing to do!

I loved Bilbo and Gandalf, they were great characters and both had some really good advice, especially Gandalf. The dwarves were a bit boring to me, although they did make me laugh! I loved the world-building and the adventures, I wasn’t a great fan of the writing style because of how drawn out and description-heavy it could be at times, but I do really appreciate how special and unique it was.

I gave this book 3.5 stars and I really enjoyed it, I’m looking forward to reading the Lord of the Rings series now! I recommend this book, but be aware it’s a bit long and could get a bit boring at times, so bring snacks aha!

“Where did you go to, if I may ask?’ said Thorin to Gandalf as they rode along.

‘To look ahead,’ said he.

‘And what brought you back in the nick of time?’

‘Looking behind,’ said he.” – The Hobbit

That’s all for now, I hope you enjoyed this review. Have you read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings? See you soon, stay safe,

Ellie xx

If you would like to purchase this book, you can find it here: Amazon UK (affiliate link) – Amazon FR (affiliate link) – AbeBooks (affiliate link) – The Book Depository (affiliate link) – Audible FR (affiliate link) – Amazon US – Waterstones – Barnes and Noble – Audible UK – Scrib’d – Kobo