Finally Finished THE HOBBIT!!!

It took me about a month to do it, but I finally finished reading The Hobbit!!!  Does the fact that it took me so long (a month to read a book is a long time for me) for me to read it mean that I didn't like it?  Not at all.  I just simply had a hard time sticking with it.  I do like Adventure and/or Fantasy stories, but they're not my favorites. 

I'm honestly ashamed to say this, but if there had been a little romance in the story, I think I would have enjoyed it more.  There is NO romance (in the way we typically think of romance) in the whole book.  It's my understanding that as I get further into the series that a little romance is on the way, but there isn't any romance whatsoever in the whole book.  Why couldn't Bilbo have met someone special on his journey to help defeat Smaug???  If he met Gollum and had such amazing adventures, why couldn't there have been a cute little female Hobbit who needed rescuing by the Tookish Hobbit????

Sure.  Sure.  I could be the one to write The Hobbit with a little romantic adventure, but I'm just now starting to read the series.  How dare I even consider something like that?!

Anyway, I can hardly wait for the movie version to come out.  I'm very excited about seeing Sir Ian McKlellan as Gandalf again.  I have high hopes for the movie version.  I have to admit that the part of the book where Smaug come in were really exciting for me.  It was disappointing that Smaug is talked about and built up so much only to be in the books for a few brief pages (it felt like a few brief pages, anyway).  I also am looking forward to seeing on film Bilbo's first meeting with Gollum.  That's an awesome story in the book.

If you're one of the ones who has never read The Lord of the Rings series, just because I'm not as enthusiastic as others are about the series should not keep you from enjoying what really IS a great series.  I definitely wanted to read and wanted to turn the page to find out what happened next.  It's just my own personal disappointment in the lack of romance that takes away from the story for me.....!!!

I've already begun the 2nd book.....I'm only in the Forward so far.  It's interesting to note that I've always heard that Tolkien wrote this series as an allegory because he and C.S. Lewis had challenged each other to write modern-day allegories, but in the Forward to The Fellowship of the Ring, Tokien himself says that the story is NOT an allegory.  He states very clearly that he simply wanted to write a long story to prove that a reading audience would stick with a long, purely adventure story.  (Maybe next time I'll quote him to prove I'm not off track.)  This is a whole new perspective on the series for me...How about for you?!