Genre: Fantasy, adventure

Narrative Style: Third person, chronological

Published: 1954

Rating: 4/5

Format: Hardback

Synopsis: The company have been beset by orcs and are no longer all together. Boromir is dead, Merry and Pippin have been captured and Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli are looking for them. Sam and Frodo have already tried to escape. Somewhere in the shadows is Golem.

Time on shelf: A long time. My husband has been on at me to read the series and at last I succumbed.

Reading Challenge – TBR Pile Challenge 2022

There was a little trepidation on starting this. I’d found the first book a bit of struggle and as a result, I wasn’t sure whether to read the next one or not. After suggesting this caused my husband to wail in despair, I decided I had to carry on but I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it.

Perhaps it was because I knew what to expect this time but I enjoyed this one more than the Fellowship of the Ring. It felt like there was less history and explaining and more action this time round. I appreciate that there was a lot of scene setting that had to be done in the first book – a lot of things that needed to be explained – but it really slowed the pace. This time there was action aplenty as well as peril and danger for the main characters.

There were great characters – Wormtongue, Treebeard, and Ugluk are well drawn and exciting – and a lot more of Gollum which I really enjoyed. The battle between Gollum and Smeagol, the good and the bad, is incredibly well observed and made me both sympathetic and annoyed at different points. As a result, it was more of a surprise to discover Gollum had indeed sold Frodo and Sam out.

As previously, Frodo and Sam are the heart of the story. Sam’s devotion to his master is touching as is his mistrust of Gollum. He is unable to understand why they need to use Gollum’s knowledge. Frodo doesn’t want to either but he understands the necessity of it. Of course, there is a possibility if Sam had been nicer, Gollum might not have sold them out to Shelob but I don’t really think that is true. Gollum was always going to win over Smeagol.

As at the end of The Fellowship of the Ring, there is a cliffhanger. Frodo is in extreme danger. Even so, I wasn’t tempted to start reading the next instalment. Having said that, when I do read it, I can be fairly sure that I’m going to enjoy it.