Don't worry it's there split into the three books. Doesn't have the tedium warning though. The Hobbit is in for spiders, and war.
LotR can be accused of racism, in that whole species are good, and other whole species are evil, rather than individuals being somewhere on the good-evil spectrum, all mixed up regardless of species (for which read race). I still think it's great, in spite of that, and some major literary faults.