I'm a fan of fantasy and science fiction. I adore sinking myself into a good, thick tome. Sword and Sorcery novels can easily get me hooked so I read the full series. But there is one series that I have never read, and I never will.

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.

And the reasons have nothing to do with its contents or historical origins. It's 100% my husband's fault.

Sit back and let me tell you about what married life can be like at times.

'The Hobbit' as a Child

The story starts, in a way, with my experience with The Hobbit. I was nine or ten when my parents decided to introduce me to the fantasy tale. They recognized that I hated the books that we were being forced to read at school, and they knew that if they wanted to get their dyslexic child to actually enjoy reading, they would need to find stories that I would want to read.

Knowing that I had an affinity for fantasy and science fiction stories, they purchased a copy of The Hobbit for me. I did enjoy it, but I was struggling to read it—because I was struggling to read fullstop. I was dyslexic, for crying out loud. But that didn't deter me. So, I kept trying to read the book…

…until a friend of mine saw the amazing artwork on the cover and wanted to borrow the book, so they could copy the cover for art class. They never gave the book back.

Roughly five years later, my father purchased me another copy of The Hobbit. I had already gotten over my dislike of reading and had been gobbling up all the Michael Crichton novels I could get my hands on. So, my father decided that it was time for me to give The Hobbit another go.

I read it. I enjoyed it. But I wanted to read more sci-fi thrillers. So, out came Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and, of course, the new releases from Michael Crichton. (Yes, I'm old enough to remember when The Lost World was published. I still have my first edition hardback copy. It's hiding in the boxes in the garage and waiting for an indoor bookshelf to live on, but I still have it.)

But because of how long it took me to read The Hobbit, and the lean more towards the sci-fi thrillers as a teen, I never read The Lord of the Rings.

When my husband and I got married and collected all of our books together onto one shelf, I saw that he had the full series. So, I pulled it out and tried to read it.

Notice I said tried. I was so bored with it, never getting past Brandywine Bridge. Instead, I turned my attention to series like The Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind, Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, and ultimately coming back to thrillers, reading UNSUB by Meg Gardiner, The Immortalists by Kyle Miles (another sci-fi thriller), and more Michael Crichton. (Yes, I kept going back to Michael Crichton.)

But I never read The Lord of the Rings.

The Movie Phenomenon in New Zealand

In December 2001, The Fellowship of the Ring was released to cinema. My husband really wanted to go and see it, but we had a new baby at home (our son was only 2 months old) and we didn't have any family or friends who could babysit for us. So, we never saw it in cinema.

However, in 2002, it was released to DVD and my in-laws had a copy. On one of our many visits to the in-laws', my hubby and I managed to sit down and started watching the epic film.

My husband knew that I hadn't read the books, so he thought he needed to explain to me all of the metaphors and what everything meant. And he chose to explain all of this to me while we were in the dialogue sections of the film, struggling to hear what the actors were saying, because if you turned the volume up, the battle scenes would get so loud that you need to turn it down or blow the speakers.

So, I'm watching this film with such crazy noise levels, struggling to hear the dialogue, and my husband is talking over the top of it, whispering into my ear, making it even harder to hear the dialogue.

Thirty (30) minutes… I lasted thirty minutes. I then got up, turned off the DVD and walked away. (And the irony of this is that I think the 30-minute mark in the film is Brandywine Bridge.)

"But the movie isn't over yet. You're just getting to the good bits."

"I can't watch anything while someone is talking over the top of it, whispering in my ear."

"Oh, sorry. I promise I'll stop."

So, I carried on watching a bit more… only for the whispering of irritating booklore facts to start again. "Nope, you can watch it without me."

The next day, he went out for a walk with his parents (taking our son with him), and I watched the film in blissful silence—getting irritated with the whacked out sound issues (loud battles but soft dialogue).

Of the movies, the only one of that series we saw in the cinema was the third film… and I didn't need to tell off my husband for whispering about booklore. My sister-in-law did it for me.

But because of what my husband did during that first movie (and my attempt to watch it with him), I now refuse to read the books. I don't care if they're considered literary classics within the fantasy genre. I won't read something that will bring back such aggressive feelings in me towards my husband.

And when our children were old enough to watch the films, I threatened my husband, insisting that he stay silent about the booklore. Those films were well written films, providing the viewer everything they needed to understand what was happening… as long as he kept his mouth shut so we could hear the soft-spoken dialogue.

I know the stories. I've seen those films more times than I care to count (thanks to an obsessive son and hubby).

(Seriously, I thought the film was long enough the first time I saw it—and that was the theatrical cut. But no, hubby insisted that we get the director's cut… which adds another whole movie to the series! Even if that added movie is spread across all three films in snippets spread throughout. And he had to re-watch it with the commentary… which was like reliving my first viewing with the whispering in my ear. I conveniently found another place to be, because I just couldn't take it.)

And I've read The Hobbit, so I knew when things were added to expand that story out to three films of its own.

But I refuse to torture myself reading something when there are more recent books that I would prefer to be reading.

So, yep, I admit it. I've never read The Lord of the Rings, and I refuse to read it, even if it is considered to be one of the founding books for my chosen genre.