The Hobbit

By: JRR Tolkien

Story Rating-4.5 Stars

Character Rating-4.5 Stars

Writing Rating-5 Stars

If you’re not familiar with the spellbinding tales of JRR Tolkien, this book is a good place to start. The Hobbit tells the story of Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit of small stature, but large character. He sits quietly in his home until one day he is provoked by his friend Gandalf the Grey to come on an adventure and to live the life that’s worth living. He sets off on a daring  quest with his dwarf friends as they climb   mountain tops, befriend elves and men, battle goblins and meet a dragon, all to take back the dwarfs homeland The Lonely Mountain.

Perhaps you’re like me and tried reading this book when the movies were first released, but were intimidated with the wording, and fall asleep with the text. Years later, I decided to give it a go again. I was not disappointed. Since becoming a mom though I have had to go back and forth between audio and physical books. So when I found out Andy Serkis, who played Gollum in the films, was the audiobook narrator, I was blown away! His performance was amazing. I fell in love with all the characters, which if you’ve read the book, there’s a lot of them.

Andy Serkis’ narration of the book made all the difference for me personally. The story itself is amazing, don’t get me wrong, but there was something really captivating about listening to all the different character voices that he did. I think sometimes we get bored with our own voices in our heads as we read and need something different. Hearing a spoken word helped me recapture the essence of adventure and storytelling, and it was marvelous. I can now say I can’t wait to go back to my physical copy of the book and reread it to my children.

Happy Reading!