3.5 stars

I had kind of mixed feelings about this, but I think I ultimately enjoyed it. There were just a few things that I really didn't like. I felt that the climax was...well..anti-climactic and I didn't care for the way women are treated, especially Eowyn. I had problems with how women are treated for the whole series, though, so that wasn't unexpected. Most of that didn't bother me much and that doesn't affect my rating. There also just wasn't as much of the descriptions of nature that I liked in the first two books. I understand why, but it made the descriptive writing style more difficult to read for me. I did love how the characters develop, though, and I really loved the very ending of the book. I alos found that I was able to get through more of it at once than I did with Fellowship of the Ring, but I kept putting it down, reading something else, and picking it back up. Overall, it was good but it was probably my least favorite in the series.