J.R.R. Tolkien's the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings (Barrons Book Notes)

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic fantasy adventure. Holds your interest for hours.
Review: An almost believable fantasy adventure that will make you not want to put the book down. If you have an imagination this book will make you feel as if you are on the journey with them. The characters, events and places are so vividly described for the imagination that you can almost picture them and what they might actually look like. You will wish you yourself were really a part of Middle Earth after reading this epic adventure tale.

Rating:
Summary: A review of the notes not the book.
Review: The first thing J.R.R. Tolkien says is that this is not parity or an allegory. He emphasizes that this has no relation to the war or any particular place.

The First thing that Barron's notes does is say the ring is like the atomic bomb. And the land influences the landscape after the war.

Some of the things in the book are useful for pointing out what is assumed you already know about; like shadows are bad and stars are good. As for the story it is just the bare bones with no meat. If you read this first you would be discouraged form reading the book thinking it was long and dry.

Rating:
Summary: Disgusting travesty!
Review: The Lord of The Rings is NOT a text-book! It is a book that should be read with love, joy and wonderment, not EXPLAINED with notes and NOT set as a text so generations of children will associate it with drudgery, compulsion and class-rooms. This is an act of cultural vandalism and barbarism by idiot teachers and rip-off merchants who have no feeling for literature, joy or the sponanious enjoyment of a great tale!

Rating:
Summary: Why Not Actually Read the Books?
Review: Tolkien's books are brilliant. Why read cheat sheets? You can just enjoy the fantastic majesty of his novels.

Rating:
Summary: This is low.
Review: What? The movies aren't abridged enough? Why not discover the beauty of a real work of literature by actually reading it? Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is moving and entertainingn on its own. Why let weak prose butcher literature with overly simplistic, inaccurate, and didactic notes?