what surprised me most of all about "the hobbit" was the ease of the reading itself. i thought that a tolkien book would be a difficult read as it would be complicated due to the many characters and places to keep track of, with lots of details and history inbetween. instead, it was rather simplistic most of the time. i suppose difficulty lies with "the lord of the rings" and "the hobbit" is simply a primer. now i don't feel so intimidated to read the ring trilogy, which is waiting for me back at home.

the other thing that surprised me was how sort of boring and uneventful the book was. there was nothing epic or grandiose about it. i definitely do not envision this one as a major motion picture. the cartoon version of it always bored me as a kid, (in fact i hated it), so growing up i was never excited over anything tolkien. the rings must be much better as it is the second most read book in the world.