Review: A Feast for Crows

A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is really the first book of a two-parter. Martin explains this at the end of this book. When writing the fourth installment of the Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire) series, Martin realized that the book had grown so large that he needed to break it into two parts. His options were to just break it in half or to tell the story from the viewpoint of one series of characters in the first book and from the viewpoint of another series of characters in the second book. That gives us books four and five.

In A Feast of Crows, the story follows the characters of Kings Landing, mostly Cersei and Jaime. We also follow Brienne on her quest to find Sansa Stark. We check in with Samwell Tarly who is on his own quest at the bidding of Jon Snow and we also check in with both of the Stark girls. There are also a few chapters that follow what's happening with the Greyjoys. Those who are not included in this book are Tyrion, Daenerys, Jon Snow, Bran, and Rickon. You'll have to read book five to get their stories.

Overall I thought this book was beyond slow compared to earlier books, especially book three. After all of the action in the previous book, Martin puts the brakes on this one and it tended to drag out. He makes amends at the end but showing some interesting connections, intertwining, and some definite cliff-hangers that I have a feeling won't be picked up in the next book. So until Martin releases book 6, we'll have to ponder the fate of characters like Brienna, Sansa, and Arya.

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