I'm so disappointed in myself! I really wanted to love this book, because I love the movies so much and I know people who adore the books, too. I really loved The Hobbit when I read it last year. But in my opinion, Peter Jackson did a much better job of telling this particular story than J.R.R. Tolkien did. 
 I went into it knowing that it would be full of long descriptions and histories, but somehow the last third of the story still managed to be a total struggle for me. I guess I only have so much stamina when it comes to description. I absolutely love descriptive stories; I think the more thoroughly a fictional world is imagined and described, the more real it feels and the more it draws me in as a reader. But this particular world looks a lot like our own, and hearing about every rock and tree and bend in the road and cloudy morning and trickle of water and rise and fall on a journey that even though it's just begun has already lasted for months proved to be extremely wearying. 
 It's going to be a long time before I continue on with the series, if I ever do. It's such a good story, it's just hard to read. If the characters were treated as more important than the landscape, and if there were more females in the story, I would like it so much better. Arwen was barely mentioned in this book; she didn't have a role. Tom Bombadil's lady was just there to be pretty and kind. And so was Galadriel, really. She sort of challenged the characters about their true intentions, but mainly she was beautiful and generous. All three of the women in this book were stunningly beautiful. Ho hum. 
 I think that Tolkien's mind is amazing, to have had this very detailed world inside of it, and I'm so glad that he gave us this story. But I'm also very thankful that Peter Jackson turned it into a fantastic movie series, because the writing is a bit of a chore to read.