On the whole, I love this series by Tolkien. Considered individually, this is my least favorite out of the three books (or four, if one includes The Hobbit). There are nearly 800,000 ratings for The Return of the King, so I highly doubt I have anything original to add into the mix. I did give this story a lower rating because it seems unbalanced. The battle scenes dominate this book. Oddly, there seems to be plenty of time for the characters to chat among all this chaos and destruction. On the upside, many of the conversations are quite touching and even though I know what happens in the end, it still makes me tear up. Although Frodo is a favorite character, I think the real hero of this story is Sam, who never falters and somehow remains untarnished by 'the ring.'

Overall Rating: 3.5 stars rounded up to 4
Audiobook Rating: 5 stars for outstanding narration by Andy Serkis!
Original Publication Date: 1955 ( )

DNF @ 27% - Chapter 6 ( )

Well, we arrive, at last, at the final entry of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. It is a bittersweet farewell to a classic story, but, at the same time, kind of welcomed. I'm sorry, but as soon as Sauron was destroyed, I wanted the story to end right there and then as that was the end of my cares. Unfortunately, the book just goes on and on for another 110 pages, which is nearly 10% of the entire trilogy. I know Tolkien wanted to wrap EVERY SINGLE THING into a nice little bow, even things no one really gives two shits about, but it was just too much. The entire "Scouring of the Shire" subplot is entirely unnecessary, in my opinion. I see no purpose to having another climax after the end of the main storyline, but it's there anyway, so what am I to do?

Despite all my complaining, this book still has some great qualities to it that I cannot overlook. For one, "Return of the King" definitely has an epic, grand, and climactic feel to it. There are tons of massive battles between Good and Evil in this one. Everything comes to a head, and Frodo finally arrives at Mordor. It's hard not to get excited at all this craziness. However, as I mentioned in my previous review, I don't like how Tolkien constantly tells us how epic and grand everything is. The amount of times the dude used the words "Lo!" and "Behold!" drives me off the wall. Tolkien, let me decide how I feel about this story and its scale, alright?

Though I've stated in my previous reviews that I dislike how Aragorn is "too perfect" in these books, I will say that I did finally somewhat enjoy reading about him in this book. He's not made any less perfect (if anything, just more perfect, majestic, and kingly), but it is nice reading about certain aspects of his character, like his mercy, his generosity, his ability to set pretty much the entire realm of Middle-Earth right, etc. I do get feel-good emotions reading about it at times.

Just like in the previous entry of this trilogy, the pacing isn't that great here. I've already mentioned the 110-page conclusion of this book, but there's also many other parts that drag on. A good example is the beginning. Every time I re-read "Lord of the Rings", I always get the urge to put off reading "Return of the King" for a little while after ending "The Two Towers". Almost nothing interesting happens for many, MANY pages, and it just drains me, man.

Anyway, that is how I feel about this book, and, with that, we're done with this franchise. There are obviously some other books that delve into the extremely intricate and rich lore of this world, but I'll probably re-read and review "A Song of Ice and Fire" next before going through "The Silmarillion", which will actually be a new read for me, though I now a little bit about it from watching tons of CivilizationEx videos. ( )

2020 reread via Recorded Books audiobook narrated by Rob Inglis ( )

Masterpiece. ( )