Tolkien’s Hobbit was for many, an introduction to literature, and for others, a doorstep they hardly darkened before life swept them away from reading. For me, it was a journey I never took, despite having many an opportunity to. I liken myself to an alternate Bilbo Baggins, an individual who could have had a great adventure, but was too daunted by its prospects to leap over the hedge and dive right in.

However, I did not leave it this way. After university and its speedy challenges that whipped my reading habits like a whirlwind, I returned to the path I never walked, the book Hobbit. I was met with a pleasant and surprisingly rich tale, wrapped up in a simple storytelling package. Below is my review of Hobbit, and contains what I believe to be its good bits, bad bits, and in-between bits.

The Simple Bit

Hobbit is regarded as a children’s novel, or young adult novel, by most audiences. This surprised me initially for many reasons, one of them being how well the book was written. For many readers, a well written book can mean a number of things, one of them being complexity as a standard of quality. Hobbit wasn’t a complex or hard read at any point of the book, and to some this may have been a forfeit of value. Personally, while I would have liked a bit more complexity in the novel, to say it needed it is a bit of a stretch.

The Story Bit

The story of Hobbit is one that you’d expect from the onset. Tolkien fulfills his reader expectations from the beginning and acts as a comfortable narrator from start to finish. The plotline classically has ups and downs, character development and snares, as well as the iconic moment where all is undeniably lost, multiple times over. Bilbo quite literally reaches the depths of a dungeon in one of these moments. Iconic is the word I would use to describe the plot and the characters. The side characters are incredibly useless or downright hazardous, and Bilbo is the inexperienced one who must either pull himself from the mire or perish. Tolkien doesn’t simply force Bilbo into unwarranted success, instead allowing Bilbo to have moments of cowardliness, uselessness and weakness to contrast his moments of bravery, resourcefulness and strength. All writers could learn this thing from Hobbit, despite the books short length and seemingly simple plot.

The Soulful Bit

Hobbit was a book I never expected to actually have emotions for, especially since this was a book that many people read in say, fifth to ninth grade. What I expected was a cute, simple tale with no lasting impressions aside from puddles of good descriptions and sprinkles of character hijinks. What I received though, was a packaged adventure. Tolkien’s Hobbit gave all the ingredients to a fulfilling journey: an unexpected beginning followed by a lasting decision, various points of genuine despair paired with character growth, and many moments of testament to that growth followed by a final conflict and resolution. At the end of the road and book, Bilbo saying goodbye to the remaining company felt genuinely bittersweet, and gave me an alternate take on what it means to be at the end of a long journey.

Hobbit practices the lesson it teaches, that everything is not as it may simply seem.