I've not read it myself, but I did read a lot of reviews and articles on it. In best reviews I've read, they pretty much agreed on one thing. The story the author choose needed more pages to be told. The compression of the story meant that much of it fell flat because there just wasn't enough room and short cuts were taken to give the information in as little space as possible. As a result, the author wasn't able to pull off the story like they probably intended and characterization was sacrificed.

That was really the deciding factor on not recommending it. My goal with this series of recommendations is books that people who love the movies and/or fanfiction can just pick up and read with no background. I also want them to be something people will enjoy reading and want to reread, so those that spend money won't feel like they wasted it.

I'm think I'm going to have to make another series after this one is over of all the other stuff people recommended to me that was good, but required more knowledge of the verse. This project has grown a bit bigger than I originally expected in the beginning. But, one of the great things about it is it gives me a bit of direction on what to read next and some interesting things I've discovered and read along the way that I wouldn't have otherwise.