The shadow of Malabron

I had to read this book for class and while I really enjoyed some of the creative use of story in this novel I couldn't get past how much of a LOTR mimic it was. There were major scenes that seemed taken right out of the books or movies and given a YA tone. Towards the middle I was ready to forgive the book the similarities but by the end it was just too much. I'm a big fan of LOTR and I felt a little cheated by this version. I wanted to give this a 2 stars but maybe that would be a little emotional, because there are many elements to this story that can stand on their own merit and are really fascinating but as I mentioned I just couldn't get past the similarities.