Children of Húrin is BRUTAL!
I finally finished Children of Húrin today. I started after reading maybe a third of the Silmarillion and struggling to stick to it. I remembered that if the reading guide said Children of Húrin was best if that ended up being the case. I knew going in, based on how everyone here talked about it, that Children of Húrin was a tragic story, but my goodness. This was just gut punch after gut punch of tragedy for Túrin. Don't get me wrong, a good portion of it is of his own making, but damn if it isn't tragic to watch.
Even with all the warnings I saw, I still don't think I was prepared for how constant the torture was for our protagonists. Any time they'd get a small win, there was either a price that it came at or was quickly irrelevant because of a new tragedy.
I loved the book, but it took me forever to read because it was just such a bummer! Only complaints I really have is the... incesty... bits at the end. Felt a little much honestly idk. The other small quibble I had is that it feels quite apparent that this was unfinished in the way it's written. Doesn't quite have the same flow as the LOTR books. I don't know how much of that is Christopher though.
TLDR: Great book... ew incest.