I came into this book with very high expectations, for Lord of the Rings is one of the greatest series ever made. However it didn’t impress me as much as I had hoped. Upon finishing it I found myself taking an age to decide what rating I should give as It felt wrong to give such an iconic book such an average score. But I ultimately realised that if a book leads me to sit and analyse all the issues I had with it, rather than how great it was, then surely it cannot be any higher than a 3.

Of course I’ve been hit with the curse of watching the films before reading the books again, but what films they were! That was probably the biggest problem because for me the film was the ultimate Lord of The Rings and anything else is wrong.

The best way to sum up this book in my own way is that the many parts of the film that I loved were either different or not even in the book... and instead it was filled with parts that evidently were not good enough to even be included in the film... (My fangirl mum once told me that when she was younger she wrote a two page list of all the differences between the book and the film. I can see now how that is possible now.)

I’ll start with the good! The conversations between Bilbo and Gandalf, and then Frodo and Gandalf about the ring, it’s history and what is now brewing in the world were fantastic and really built up the importance of the journey to come. Oh and the writing has actually improved from The Hobbit!

Now for the bad... everything after that? Just kidding.... no not really. We’ll start with Tom Bombadil who after writing this I wish to never hear or see his name ever again. For he and everything that went on during his chapters made me want to tear my hair out. It was the most pointless sidetrack from the main story I have ever encountered in my history of reading. And the singing... please make it stop. It burns us. Ultimately I had to set the speed of my audiobook as fast as I could so my suffering would end quickly before I received any long lasting damage. I can see why there was absolutely no mention of this character and these chapters in the film.

Now let’s speed through the rest because by this point we’re about halfway through the book and in comparison to the film SOD ALL has happened. Right, every scene with Strider/Aragorn was brilliant, his character is epic!! but Arwen? Where you at? I miss you. Then meeting Bilbo again: ‘Hi there, just don’t start doing any sing- oh great... please just leave me alone.’ Skip along a bit more and we don’t even get the classic ‘Noooooooo’ from Gimli in Moria, in fact he didn’t even seem that bothered, shame. Now let’s skip to the end where we are completely missing one of the most iconic scenes in the entire film!? How’s that happened then? I mean I guess it will come at the beginning of the next book but that will be pretty bizarre.

Look, I’m nitpicking obviously, and having fun doing so too. Despite the many differences the book was still great, I mean it’s Tolkien’s Lord the Rings. But the problem is by the end, instead of appreciating the work of Tolkien, I was left appreciating more what director James Cameron actually managed to create from it. He created a masterpiece from something that in my opinion wasn’t quite there yet.