Time for me to get serious and defend The Hobbit (beyond the fact that it has a dragon in it)
Firstly, The Hobbit was written as a children's book, so will necessarily have a different style to LotR. It will be simpler in tone, less complex and have more vivid imagery. These kind of things work in children's books, and are possibly essential to appeal to the younger mind. Having more vivid images can go a long way in explaining why the Dwarf characters are often comic, and why Gandalf is more humorous and tricksy.
The Hobbit is also something of a classic fairy tale. We are introduced to a new character, a little person, who lives in an exaggerated version of our world at its best, and one day he's swept away on a journey. And on this journey he encounters all kinds of weird and wonderful creatures and people. There are pixies in the form of the Elves, monsters in the form of Smaug and the orcs, and horror in the form of Gollum. But at the end of it all, Bilbo lives happily ever after, just as he should.
I think it does help if The Hobbit is the
first of the books any new reader approaches, purely because LotR is such a monster of a book that it would overshadow anything. And The Hobbit doesn't deserve that. It's wonderful in its
own right.
The style is possibly a little old fashioned to many brought up on the 'realistic' tales that are nowadays seemingly deemed more appropriate for children than fairy tales, but it is no different to that found in books by Enid Blyton or Arthur Ransome. And I wouldn't say its altogether far from JK Rowling's style, episodic and quite vivid.
And anyway, it has my favourite character in it, Bilbo.