JRR Tolkein, The Two Towers

I dragged through parts of this book. I started it already sold on Aragorn, so the first half of it was quite enjoyable. And I loved Treebeard - such a creative character and race. Then we got to Frodo and Sam. They're traveling toward Mordor with Gollum and I feel like not much is happening and it's just going on for chapters. I didn't understand how the little nuances could be character development and I didn't think much of these characters (except Gollum, but he's still a bit of a mystery) so I really lost a lot of my interest. I stopped at a point here for a week long break because I didn't want to try to push myself through it.

Turns out I just postponed dragging through it until this weekend. But! It got better when they met Faramir - he's an absolutely interesting character and I want to read more about him right away. And then Sam actually steps up at the very end Sam takes a big developmental step and I found myself actually cheering for him. It's a far more impressive step in the book, so I didn't really love it in the movie in past viewings.

So overall, I liked The Towers. Not my favorite book, but I'm certainly interested enough to finish the trilogy.