Matilda is a whimsical, endearing treasure. If this book were a person it would be your best friend. The story is just simply lovable, as quirky and as comfortable as that old pair of slippers you love to lounge around the house in on Saturday mornings.

The Last Motley takes place in a world known as Arinn, which looks at first glance similar to our own world as it was somewhere in the Middle Ages – both veteran readers of fantasy and newcomers to the genre will settle in easily. Briar’s Glen, the village where protagonist Roderick lives, is a place of humble outdoor markets, cottages, and dusty dirt roads – a quiet backwater of Arinn. Quiet, that is, until the motley arrives.

As good as parts of this story are, and make no mistake they are excellent, this story fails on three major counts and one minor one: its tone, its vulgarity, and its theology, the minor failure coming in the world-building itself.

Always near the top of the most sold books of all time, The Hobbit is delightful and fun and full of adventure.  The adventure asks great questions about moral and spiritual right and wrong.

What Tolkien has given us in the guise of a story, is hope in a fallen world. When the world offers us nothing but sadness and meaninglessness, Tolkien, though The Lord of the Rings, reminds us that, no, this is not the end. Evil and death and suffering do not have the final say.