A delightful children’s fantasy which stands up well to rereading.

http://livredor.livejournal.com/224440.html

This book was amazingly horrible. There was NO point to the entire story, the characters were weak, the plot was dumb, and the writing style ill suited the story. The author would go off about some mundane detail for pages and then veer off onto some different, unrelated (and just as boring) topic. I tried for weeks to give the story a chance and it never once struck me as entertaining. I was overjoyed when I finished the book… my self-imposed punishment finally came to an end!

This was my first real introduction to Tolkien. It is one of the most exciting and gripping stories I’ve read. I couldn’t put it down. It’s a much easier read than Lord of the Rings and far less intimidating. I read it when I was about twelve and I’ve probably reread it about seven times. You never grow tired of it. If you’ve never read this do yourself a favour

It took me so long to read this book! I started it December 2001 when I first moved to Minnesota and the movies were about to come out. I figured I needed to read the LOTR books before seeing the movies, and had to read this before I could read them. I read the first 10 pages and couldn’t get into it, and set it down for about a year and a half. When I finally picked it up again, I was drawn into the story more and enjoyed it a great deal. It set up the LOTR Trilogy well and prepared me to read those books as well as see the movies. I know quite a few people have said that the books are poorly written, but I didn’t get this sense at all. It was an enjoyable story.