This is the third and final book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I heavily suggest that you do not read this if you haven’t read both the first and the second books too. Together, they form one very long book.

Much as with the second, the story is not told linearly. You find out how the war is going for the first half, then it cuts back to Frodo and Sam in Mordor. This means that, again, you have a very long wait until the previous novel’s cliff-hanger is resolved! That one was a pretty big one too, so that was very suspenseful.

There are some big shocks in this book which make it quite an exciting conclusion, but, by this point, there was something I’d noticed Tolkien does a little too often. Specifically, a character will be killed off and a big sad event will be made of it, only for them to have magically survived somehow afterward. Once or twice, is okay, but not as many times as it’s done, I can’t help but feel he was a little afraid of killing his characters. This book also features a return of the boring battle scenes that the previous one had, which is a shame.

But, that said, there’s still lots to enjoy in this book. I’ve said before that each of his books tend to have at least one really interesting or really likeable character and this time it is a woman named Éowyn, who had actually appeared in quite a small capacity in the previous book, but here she has quite an exciting role to fill. I was also very pleased with the ending; I shan’t spoil it, but, it wrapped everything up nicely and certainly did not disappoint. On the whole, this book is equally as good as the second in the trilogy, but sadly, not quite on the same level of the first. Anybody who’s read the first two should definitely finish the story with this!

Rating: 8.5/10

Average rating of the whole trilogy: 8.83/10

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This is the second book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I would heavily suggest that you do not read it if you haven’t read the first. I would also suggest that you do not read this review if you haven’t read the first book, as I’m going to mention things which are spoilers for the first, but not for the second.

Things pick up exactly where they left off last time with Frodo and Sam having separated from the rest of the group in their mission to destroy the ring. Though, oddly enough, things aren’t written linearly. For the first half of the book, you’re given no word of Sam and Frodo, and instead find out about what Aragorn and everybody else did next. I can’t quite understand why this was done; although it does build a fair bit of tension for Frodo’s cliff-hanger which I suppose could be the reason. You’re also treated to quite a shock very early on, which is good, but I shan’t spoil it…

As with other Tolkien novels, there are many interesting and likeable characters to be found in this book. One character I particularly liked was somebody called Treebeard. Treebeard is a type of sentient tree called an Ent, which I thought was a very nice idea. Plus several orc characters are introduced who are very effective villains, being both comical and menacing. We’re also treated to the return of two lovely characters from his previous works, including one particular favourite of mine from The Hobbit, which I was very happy about.

Sadly though, while this book certainly is good, it doesn’t quite reach the incredible levels that the previous one did. Part of the reason for this book falling a little short is the fact that there are several battle scenes. I did not find the battles at all fun to read. Often, when going to read a bit more, I dreaded having to read through another boring segment on fighting. Another thing is, that while the first book (and The Hobbit too) were big, bright exciting fantasy stories, here things begin to get quite bleak which took a lot of the fun out of it for me. That said, this is still a good novel and, if you’ve read the first, you should definitely read this.

Rating: 8.5/10

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This book is the first in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and is also a kind of sequel to Tolkien’s other novel, The Hobbit, which features several of the same characters. While it wouldn’t be necessary to have read The Hobbit in order to understand this book, it would certainly enhance the experience and I would recommend it.

The story starts with Bilbo Baggins planning the celebrations for his one hundred and eleventh birthday. Bilbo now has an heir who lives with him who is named Frodo. Frodo is, it could be said, the main character to this novel. Bilbo pulls off a big stunt at his party so that he can vanish and Frodo inherits all of his stuff, including the ring he stole from Gollum in The Hobbit. Gandalf comes and has a chat with Frodo and tells him that he must begin a long quest in order to have that ring destroyed, because if he does not, some very bad things indeed will happen.

This book has some really excellent characters who you’ll love reading about. First, there’s Gandalf (who also appears in The Hobbit) a wizard who’s very wise, but also quite playful. You always get the impression that Gandalf knows a lot more than he says he does. Then there’s also Strider, a mysterious man who joins the heroes later on in the novel, I like Strider because he’s a very practical, no nonsense kind of hero. He’s just downright cool, really. But, I think the most loveable character in this book is Samwise Gamgee, the slightly bumbling, but utterly devoted and loyal servant of Frodo. Almost everything he does is adorable. There are other wonderful characters too, such as Tom Bombadil, the strange wizard who lives in the woods, but, I’ll stop myself there.

But the best thing about this novel isn’t the story, nor its excellent cast of characters. Very rarely, I would say the best thing about this novel is its setting. This book is so fantastically immersive! It’s just amazing to pick up this book for a while and to escape to Middle Earth for an hour or so. Tolkien is really good at describing nature and there are times where the characters just walk through the woods for a bit, but it’s STILL really, really good to read. There’re also some pretty good links to The Hobbit which show that it is clearly set in the same world, but that a lot of time has passed, and I like that a lot.

This is one of the best book I’ve ever read. Rating: 9.5/10

Buy it here.