My feelings for this book are more complicated than those for The Fellowship of the Ring. By necessity, this book is more dreary and is farther away from the wonderful and dreamy nature scenes of the first book.

I was surprised to find it wholly split in two parts, one following the rest of the fellowship and the very tail end checking back in on Frodo and Sam. You get quite far into the book without hearing about the ring-bearer at all.

My complicated feelings mainly come from the treatment of orcs as something outside of nature. It's gross to me that men who fight on the side of the enemy are assumed to be misguided or somehow manipulated into acting on that side, while orcs are killed without remorse and are assumed to be rotten without hope. In the movie I thought the friendly competition and banter about the number of orks slain was somewhat charming mainly because the movie does a better job of convincing the audience that orcs are irredeemable. However, in the books we spend time with the orcs through their capture of Merry and Pippin. They have conversations and interactions and really, they don't seem like they're purely awful to me.

That is my main bone to pick after reading this. Otherwise, I adored hearing about the ents. The story of entwives leaving to find suitable gardening land intrigues me. I also thought the complicated dynamics surrounding Gollum, Frodo, and Sam were well-written.

Video Review: youtu.be/aXnSe4FNVGY