The Two Towers

J.R.R. Tolkien

The Lord of the Rings Part #2

Summary:

The Company of the Ring is sundered. Frodo and Sam continue their journey alone down the great River Anduin – alone that is, save for a mysterious creeping figure that follows wherever they go...

Plot:

I found this part of this story much more exciting than the first. I now really care for the characters, and any danger to them makes me feel very uneasy. We don’t see much of Frodo in the first half of the book, which mainly tells the story of the rest of the Fellowship, but the second half is in turn mainly Frodo and Sam’s adventures. There were many light-hearted moments, and also some very sad ones as well as some scenes that made me pretty anxious. There was more action in this one, I feel, and also more strange settings, that were unlike the ones I’d read about in the Hobbit and the Fellowship. Some parts, however was a little hard to understand, and I got a little confused by all the different names of places. As I said before, Tolkien’s writing is exquisitely detailed, and his descriptions are beautiful.

Characters:

There are some new characters, but not too many, most of which are pretty interesting. There are of course, the likable characters we met in the first part, and many I dislike. The ‘villians’ (or just bad characters) are pretty creepy, and definitely serve their purpose in making the story more exciting. I enjoyed getting to know more about the characters from the first part of the novel, but I must say the new characters that were introduced made this book incredible.

Who should read this:

13+, there is still no language or sexual content, but some thematic material that might be frightening, including violence and some pretty scary creatures. Once again, the writing is good, but very detailed and descriptive, so if that kind of thing bores you I would suggest reading the Hobbit first as a test. Fantasy-fans, you should have read this already...or at least be planning to soon... You cannot read this one without having read part one, that's like starting a book on the 100th page, you won't get it...

My rating:

I really, really enjoyed this book. I have very high hopes of the last part, and I really hope the ending doesn’t let me down like I felt the Hobbit’s did. This rating is for the entire book, I’m not rating each part separately. This part didn’t lower my opinion of the novel at all, and so it stays 5/5.

Quote:

Frodo and Sam have a conversation about whether their story will be told in years to come. This is part of that conversation, which sums up this part of the novel very well for me:

‘You and I, Sam, are still stuck in the worst places of the story...

Read my review for Part 1: the Fellowship of the Ring  and Part 3: The Return of the King!