Looking Back (April)

I'll be doing this "Looking back" at the end of each month, to wrap interesting things that happend through April about books in my little world. Therefore it will mostly be about interesting books that came out, other book announcements, books I bought or got and so on.
This month I started book-blogging again, which I will try to do often, but I can't do it everyday, that of course is big news concerning books and me.
This month the title for J.K. Rowling's new book was announced, and it is to be called "The Casual vacany" and to be released September 27th, and I am so excited for it to come out, even though it's synopsis is not something I would typically read, but since it's J.K. Rowling I am sure it will be good.
This month I also started reading Lord of the rings, which I have been wanting to do for so long, and now I finally started, and so far I am really enjoying it.
This month I bought 4 books. I was so lucky that the bookstore that I was in actually had an okay selection of English books, since I live in Denmark this is not something I often come across. So you can imagine my excitement, but they didn't have many books I wanted anyways so it wasn't that good. They would have some in a series, but not the ones I wanted, but I did manage to find 4 books. I bought Everneath by Brodi Ashton, Pegasus and the flame, Pegasus and the fight for Olympus, Pegasus and the new Olympians all by Kate O'Hearn. They all look quite good so I am looking forward to reading these.
This is just shortly what happend of interesting things this past month, hope you all had a great month, and look forward to May just as I do.

2012 YA/MG Fantasy challenge hosted by The Book cellar

Since Fantasy is my favorite genre, I thought It would be fun to participate in a fantasy challenge, and the one hosted by The Book cellar sounded like a great deal of fun. The goal of this challenge is to read and review 10 fantasy novels coming out this year. So I would get to review some books and read some more fantasy books :D Will be updating on how far I am in the challenge as I read the books :D

The Hobbit by J.R.R.Tolkien

Titel: The Hobbit
Author: J.R.R.Tolkien
Publisher: Grafton
First published: 1937
Pages: 285
Series: Prequel to Lord of the rings
Star rating: *****
"The Hobbit is a tale of high adventure, undertaken by a company of dwarves, in search of dragon-guarded gold. A reluctant partner in this perilous quest is Bilbo Baggins, a comfort-loving, unambitious hobbit, who surprises even himself by his resourcefulness and skill as a burglar. 
Encounters with trolls, goblins, dwarves, elves and giant spiders, conversations with the dragon, Smaug the Magnificent, and a rather unwilling presence at the Battle of the Five Armies are some of the adventures that befall Bilbo. But there are lighter moments as well: good fellowship, welcome meals, laughter and song.
Bilbo Baggins has taken his place among the ranks of the immortals of children's fiction. Written for Professor Tolkien's own children, The Hobbit met with instant critical acclaim when published. It is a complete and marvellous tale in itself, but it also forms a prelude to The Lord of the Rings"

Wow, I had heard that the fantasy by Tolkien is good, but I guess it is one of those things you have to read to truly believe. The world building in this book was really amazing, I felt as if what you were told and saw through the story were only the tip of the iceberg. It could get the 5 stars only based on the world building, if you where to ask me. All of the creatures where just great, and I really liked the hobbits and the elves too.

I really liked the characters too, they were all very realistic, and Bilbo was great. He was such an awesome unwilling hero, and he just grew so so much through a single book, that some characters doesn't even do in an entire series.

Even though I really enjoyed this book I had a few issues with it as well. Sometimes Tolkien described the look of some random tree in a little to much detail for me it would have been enough just to be told that it was an oak tree, that had grown for decades or something like that. It didn't need a long passage. Even though it was great with a lot of detail when it came to the history of the people and important landmarks.

The style in which this book was written wasn't really the type I was used to, which of course is mostly because of the age of the book, and it therefore took me a little longer then a normal 300 paged novel would. Also almost every chapter was it's own little story, in one chapter they would meet the orcs and escape too, and in the next they did this and that, but it all lead up to the big adventure. This was at points just wonderful, because it made sense, but sometimes it seemed that each chapter was written alone and not in a novel.

So overall this was a really great book, and probably something every fantasy fan should read, and I look forward to starten the fellowship of the ring :D

Language change

I have written the first two of my posts in Danish, but I am gonna switch to English know, since I read most of my books in english so it only seems natural that I should review the books on english too. Also I am very new to all of this blogging stuff. I have tried before, but stopped quickly afterwards, so we will see how it goes this time!