Let me just take a moment to express how happy I am not to be in college anymore. With a roommate starting her final year and reading Facebook posts about friends moving back on campus, I find myself so relaxed that I'm done and graduated! Sigh, thank God for graduation!
So, on today's agenda:
Other GRRM reviews:
A Game of Thrones
A Clash of Kings
A Storm of Swords
The HBO Series
If you're reading a review of this book, you probably don't need a summary of the basic story line, so I'll just jump right in! The fourth book focuses on the cast of characters in King's Landing (i.e. Cersei and Jaime), Brienne of Tarth, Sam Tarly, the characters in Dorne, and the occasional chapter on Alayne.
I was not looking forward to reading this book. My best friend (and most devoted reader of this blog!) told me about the POVs featured in "Feast for Crows" and I found myself really disappointed. None of these people are characters I'm particularly interested in. . .which is why I've put it off reading it for so long.
Upsides: It was nice to get some more back story and development for Brienne and I loved seeing Jaime mature in this novel and make sense as a human being, as I've always found Jaime to be rather...insane, especially after the first book. I also enjoyed Alayne's chapters set at the Eeyrie with Robin Aryn and seeing more of Littlefinger's hand--no pun intended. There was finally some justice for certain members of the Lannister family and tragedy for other characters, but that's all I'm giving out!
Downsides: The beginning was so slow. GRRM starts us out with a chapter featuring characters we don't know--what goes on doesn't make a whole lot of sense and we don't meet any of those characters again until the very end of the book. The second chapter features characters from Dorne, who have Princess Marcella as a ward, and again it's hard to piece out what's going on. And then he tortures us with plot about the Iron Islands. YAWN. I found that particularly frustrating because there was a lot of set up and it seemed like he was going to develop some new and interesting characters (i.e. Asha and her uncle Victarian) and then Asha all but disappears and Victarian just--well, no spoilers. Overall, I found this book frustrating. It takes Sam Tarly the entire book to take a boat ride, Cersei makes some foolish decisions and has a lot of penis envy, Jaime spends time wondering what Cersei did when he was away, and Brienne wanders the country looking for Sansa.
Rating: 3/5 Stars. There was some good character development, but the pacing was slow. And while there was a lot of important information in the book that we'll need to know for the fifth, I just didn't really enjoy this.
Some updates! Soon, I'll have an update on the Wishbone Project for you--I recently read 'the Purloined Letter' by Edgar Allen Poe that "Wishbone" covered. So if you're reading with me, then catch up--it's a short story, less than twenty pages and I'm sure you can find it online! I'll post the episode links in a post later this week! I was going to read "the Hound of the Baskervilles," but I recently had some free time and took a Dorothy L. Sayers mystery with me, so I'm working on that right now. After that, I'll read "Hound of the Baskervilles" and "Dances with Dragons" (thanks to Shy for lending her lovely hardback to me!).
Happy reading!
AJ
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