I absolutely adored the Lord of the Ring when I read it first. I was 14 at the time and just wanted to read the most epic fantasy saga that I had heard about. I basically flew through this at the time because the story just sucked me in and I could not wait to read what will happen next. I definitely liked the parts of the books more where we follow Aragon, Legolas, and the rest of the fellowship rather than Frodo's and Sam's journey to Mordor. All in all, it is a fantastic read and I get why it was the real start of fantasy.