Now, i am a huge fan of the Lord of the Rings trilogy but The Children of Hurin was sorely disappointing. Though i have to give Tolkien credit for starting a good story i would have to give his son two thumbs down in his editing abilities. I don't think i have ever read anything so coldly written in my life. There was no love in the book. I was depressed while reading it and had to make myself finish it. If there were more character building or even just some form of emotion aside from sadness and anger, i would have probably loved this book. But there wasn't and i believe it was a huge flop.
When you read the Lord of the Rings you can tell that Tolkien loved what he was writing. There was so much involved in the telling and background of Middle-Earth; it was obviously thought-out. In the Children of Hurin you could tell it wasn't J.R.R. writing it. It was almost as if his son, Christopher found his father's notes, put in some connecting verbs, sent it to a publisher and since he was a Tolkien after-all, they published it. I'm ranting right now, i know.
The potential is there, the story is a mix of Romeo and Juliet and the Oedipal complex. Two stories i have always loved. It was merely the deliverance that sucked.