Part of the reason it's taken me so long is that I simply stopped reading for almost a month. I went on a 2-week vacation back home, and that was long enough to pull me out of the habit of reading, and then I kind of had to force myself to start again. And even if I read for half an hour a day, which is a fairly small goal, that's still only like 4 pages of this tiny-text, long-ass-paragraphs book.
I read a review of this book on Goodreads that started off, "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." I could tell exactly where that person was going with their review from that. They weren't sorry about spoilers or the length of their review or their bad English. They were sorry for not really liking the book.
And that's honestly how I feel, too.
I'm so sorry that I can't say that I absolutely loved it. That it didn't thrill me the way it thrilled my friend in elementary school, the way Harry Potter thrilled (and continues to thrill) me. The story, the message, the meaning, are absolutely wonderful. But. If I hadn't already seen the movies, or if they never existed, I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it at all. If I didn't already know the overall plot and most of the events that take place, I probably wouldn't have remembered what was going on after I took a month-long break from the book, and therefore probably would have felt like giving up on it all over again. Hell, if I didn't have a face to put with each character, I probably wouldn't have been able to keep track of who was a dwarf, elf, man, or hobbit except for Sam, Frodo, Gandalf, and maybe Aragorn. (Although, we do get plenty of frequent reminders of Legolas' and Gimli's races and their relations to each other, so, maybe.)
It's just..... so slow. So much history and geography and mere passage of time is intertwined with the action that I often didn't even notice when the description of the land had turned into something happening to someone. And not in a good way, like when an author seamlessly transitions from one thing to another. More in the bad way, like when an author has been rambling on for so long that you're barely absorbing the information anymore and you forget to pay attention to what's happening.
Again, I am sorry.
I know that these are classic books, canonical texts, and truly beloved by many. But to each his own, right? The adventure and the undying friendship and loyalty and the Chosen One To Complete A Very Dangerous Mission aspects of this book absolutely appeal to me. But, unfortunately, Tolkein's writing style does not.
So right now, I'm left with a decision to make. Technically, I have read an entire book that intimidated me, which fulfills the challenge, so I can move on to the next category. However, The Lord of the Rings is all technically one very long book that gets published in three volumes. The Fellowship of the Ring is the first volume, which means that techincally, I have only read 1/3 of the book as a whole. I would like to read The Two Towers and The Return of the King some day soonish, but I really think that if I try to read them both next, it'll take me until October and then I'll barely have enough time for the rest of the 2016 challenge. So probably what I'll do is I'll move on to the next challenges, perhaps reading one or two other books before tackling The Two Towers, then another book or two before The Return of the King.
Oh, and - spoiler, I guess, though I can't imagine anyone reading this hasn't seen the movies by this point - I was really surprised that Fellowship didn't end with Boromir's death and Merry and Pippin's kidnapping! The final chapter ended with Frodo and Sam leaving Amon Hen, as the film does; but the rest of the Company is still running through the woods looking for Frodo. I suppose Two Towers starts with Boromir's death and the kidnapping? I guess I'll just have to read the next book and find out!
Side note: I have no idea what to choose for a book that I previously abandoned. The only reason I have ever abandoned a book is because it bored me too much to continue. Do I really want to force myself through the boredom yet again? Isn't the point of reading to be intrigued and absorbed into the book? Can I maybe count a series that I abandoned? Because that would work for me. I kind of abandoned the Maze Runner series when the wait list at my library was too long for the third book and then I got busy moving in to the new apartment/abandoned reading all together. But the series didn't bore me. But I also didn't ever start the third book in the series. Sigh. I'll have to think of something for that category.
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