The Hobbit

I started The Hobbit with low expectations, which sounds like a really pessimistic thing to say, but it's true. A while ago, I had tried to just jump into the Lord of the Rings trilogy with the first book, but quickly lost interest when I realized that Tolkien's world was passing right over my head. So, when I picked up my copy of The Hobbit, I was a little nervous that I'd just be fumbling through paragraphs, skipping over important sentences that I couldn't understand, and feeling pretty pathetic because of the number of people who read this book in middle school while I still was ignorant of it. But I was pleasantly surprised that I slipped effortlessly into the first chapter. While I'm still not done with the book (because, really, it is long, and I have more work than I can handle already), I'd love to continue with it. I love the introduction into the world of Middle Earth, and I can see why so many people do as well.

Something that really gets to me is when details don't make sense, or, even worse, when they make so much sense that the novel feels more like a manual than a story. When I was really into Star Wars, I tried to read some of the novels by Timothy Zahn. I couldn't get into them, as much as I wanted to. The characters felt like they had taken a backseat to Zahn's descriptions of weapons, worlds, and technology. Tolkien made Middle Earth feel like I could step out my back door and be there in an instant. Everything in his work felt natural, and made sense without trying. That alone makes me want to keep reading.