It never picked up for me. I kept waiting and waiting for it to get good . . . for the characters to grow and reveal their personalities, any of the thirteen of them, but that never happened. Sure, the plot was kind of cool, adventure after adventure, but who cares if no one gives a fill-in-the-blank about any of the characters? All the characters were very general and just there, and none of them really stood out except for Thorin and Bilbo, but that's to be expected since they are the main characters. It would have been great if each little adventure we'd get to know one of the dwarves or something, but I can hardly remember their names so that never happened. 
 I know I sound like I'm complaining--I am. I'm just very disappointed. I picked up the Hobbit figuring that since the movie was coming out, it'd be a good start to the Lord of the Rings series, which I've always wanted to read since I was never really a fan of the movies which seemed to move too quickly. But if the rest of the series is like this . . . I don't know.