I finished this book yesterday in amazement (AND YES I've ACTUALLY READ THE 200 pages APPENDIX! and it was beautiful). 
 I started buddy reading LotR in January with three of my friends and now this epic journey is over. I loved discussing this book with my friends and I also have to say that I really started to "get" Tolkien and his writing style. My reading experience of this was so much nicer than the one of The Fellowship of the Ring in which I struggled with Tolkien's narration but now that I'm more acquainted with it I get that it's not really about the characters and their inner feelings but about the journey and first and foremost about the world (and the worldbuilding). 
 Without a doubt, Middle-Earth is so well thought-through and makes so much sense in every single aspect (be it regarding the climate, the languages, the names of people and cities, the geographies, the history etc) that every other fantasy world pales in comparison. It is crazy. I am actually convinced that Tolkien was a genius (and a nutter). This man. His brain amazes me. I know that he was heavily inspired by Nothern mythology and lore (he actually stole some ideas but man I don't even care) but he made these tales entirely his own and crafted a beautiful world with a great history. 
 LotR makes you question a lot of interesting concepts and questions. Throughout the series I actually struggled with the trope of "A chosen One" because I was convinced that e.g. Samwise could have taken the burden of the Ring as well and that Frodo wasn't necessaire for the task... whereas some people that I have read it with, saw that completely differently and we discussed. 
 Another of my favorite discussion was about the Dominion of Men. We all thought it very sad that all other races (esp. the Dwarves and Elves) where diminishing and they Men were taking over... Tolkien wanted to create a story that explained our world now and since there's only Men and no magic today, these creatures had to leave at the beginning of the Fourth Age. It was rather depressing. Also the concept of The Havens. Oh man. I need to research them more because in a perfect world Arwen and Aragorn could have still sailed there and lived on together (their tale in the appendix (esp their parting) absolutely broke my heart). Overall I was quite surprised how much I loved the characters by the end of this book because Tolkien really didn't focus his narration on them and it was quite hard to connect to them at first. But man, when I read that Legolas invited Gimli to the Havens with him - MY HEART JUST .sclknasfklbsdjhfvsdjhfgv like maaaan I'm happy. 
 I'm happy that I've read this (alongside with The Silmarillion) and can now re-read it throughout my entire life!!