I must have been pretty young when I watched The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring for the first time, and I immediately fell in love. Because of my affinity for the movies, I read The Hobbit in grade school, and not long after, I picked up The Fellowship of the Ring…and quickly abandoned it.

Anyone who’s read the books probably understands why my very early teenage self didn’t get far. The pacing and entire tone of The Fellowship is wildly different from its prequel, and was just a bit beyond me at the time.

Now, at thirty, I finally picked them up again in audiobook form, which honestly I highly recommend. Andy Serkis does one of the best readings I’ve ever heard, and I consumed a lot of audiobooks last year.