*3.5 stars* 
 I've been meaning to read this series for quite some time now. I read The Hobbit about 4 years ago, and enjoyed that a lot, but then lost the mood for fantasy adventures. And after watching the movies for the first time 2 years ago (yeah yeah, I know, late to the party on that one), I tried again to give them a read. It was a no go, my mood just wasn't in fantasy. Recently, I decided to give it another try, this time as an audio version, and I got hooked on the story. I really enjoyed the storytelling and world building in this book. Tolkien really knew how to craft a brilliant adventure story. The writing style was very pleasant to listen to and quite exciting at times. My only issue was that I found sections of the book to be so dry and boring that it was a struggle to get through. Sometimes the chapters would be so wordy and long that I would lose focus and zone out. Hopefully I didn't miss anything majorly important. I also am not the biggest fantasy fan- I enjoy it and there are certain series that I love but I really, really have to be in the mood for it in order to love it. I'll likely continue on with the series (also on audio) to complete the full story and hopefully soon so I won't have another 4 year gap between reading Tolkien books.