“A Feast for Crows” by George R.R. Martin

Cover via Amazon

FINALLY!!!

Oh my gosh, it took me forever to finish reading this book. I can’t even remember when I began to read it. It was such a drag. I had to take breaks just to get away from all the characters and conflicts and scheming and history lessons. They clouded my brain. While reading A Feast for Crows, I also read Inheritance by Christopher Paolini, The Song of the Lioness series by Tamora Pierce, The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan, Body Language for Dummies (I had a crush on a guy and wanted to know if he likes me without having to ask him), and Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.

I’m sorry to say this but this book was a bore for me. I was not interested in the characters presented in this book; however, I do know that in order for the story to work, we (the readers) do need to know what these characters are up to and also what is going in Westeros. These characters —Brienne, Jaime, Cersei, Arya (she is always interesting to me), Victarion, Samwell— are all able to paint us a picture of the bleak, dismantled land of Westeros. Winter is coming. The land is riddled with corpses and villans. People are scavenging for food to put away before Winter hits hard. But it seems that all, except maybe the Vale, will be unprepared for winter. And along with Winter will come the Others. I believe that their army of zombies will grow from all the corpses left over from the war.

Yes, I do believe that the Others will get pass the Wall. Apart from the wall and the meager help from Stannis, the brothers of the black do not have much help in fortifying the wall. It’s hard to say what exactly will happen since GRRM likes to throw his readers off sometimes by causing some unexpected thing to happen (annoying) but I do believe that the Others will cross over and reign terror on the people of Westeros and then Dany and her dragons will have to jump in with Bran and his beasts to obliterate the Others and it will be like a “War of the Gods”. (That’s what I fantasize of happening in the end.)

Yo, Cersei is crazy as hell. When the High Sparrow had her locked in a cell, I was so elated, I yelled “YES!” to the tranquillity of the train I was on. She deserved that. Poor lady (bitch, whore, mother, queen) was beginning to unravel. Power consumes and it consumed her. She wanted it so badly but when she received it, she was unable to manage it wisely. I also found Cersei’s character to be simply annoying. It is time for her to be executed from the story. By the way, I do not like to be tempted and GRRM definitely tempted me with Cersei’s prophecy. Everytime it was alluded to, I anticipated that it would finally be revealed but then GRRM would switch to another character or allow Cersei to wander off on a different thought. The prophecy wasn’t fully revealed until about the middle of the novel. 😦

Jamie surprised me. I didn’t know that I would be so drawn to him. The change in his countenance certainly charmed me and made me anticipate his scenes. He has matured throughout the story and I appreciate that he’s no longer a total ass; he’s now a considerate ass. I enjoyed reading his parts. I looked forward to his sarcastic quips and jokes.

I don’t care that Brienne is an ugly mampy I still respect her as a warrior maiden. The girl certainly has heart and courage. Although her snippets bored me, I am drawn to her story. I was hoping that she would hook up with Sir Hyle Hunt. The romantic side of me was hoping that Hunt had fallen in love with her (with her strength, fighting skills, and her beautiful eyes, not her face) but of course, this is not a romance novel and, furthermore, GRRM is the author so none of that frivolous romantic shit took place.

I love how GRRM is crafting this story. He allows us to see what is going on in every part of the Westeros kingdom and allows us to know what the people in power are doing, for the most part. Knowing so much about Westeros makes me feel as if I’ve lived there. I know what the people are like and what they endure and what they fear and I can therefore relate to them. My only worry is that GRRM has crafted this monstrousity of a story and might not be able to sufficiently tie all the loose ends into a concluding knot.

Anyways, I can’t wait to get started on A Dance with Dragons. I went to Barnes and Nobles yesterday to buy it but, unfortunately, I could not afford to buy a $35 hardcover novel, even with the 20% off Christmas sale and additional 10% for being a B&N (broke, post-grad) member. I have to wait until I receive my meager paycheck from my internship, then I can lay hands on the immense A Dance with Dragons.

***praying for a job in the new year***