It feels a hair pointless to review these one-by-one because no one's going to just pick up Feast for Crows to try and give this a go. (Or at least, no one should do that, though perhaps with the show 'n' all, some folks might think of skipping over some books in the series and then jump in somewhere thinking they'll follow along perfectly, and to that I can only say, don't you dare, go back and read the damn books. I like the show and think they've done a great job, but there's a lot more going on in the books, needless to say.)

Storm of Swords was always going to be hard to follow, and with that and Feast for Crows, we see the embodiment of the notion that it's so much more fun (and easier!) to tear something down than it is to put it all back together again. What happens after your world collapses? (Which it well and truly did for both the Starks and the Lannisters, the major players in Westeros thus far.) More collapse, as it turns out. People meandering without a purpose, or simply a very vague notion of one. Feast has a bit of a reputation for being a slog, and it is indeed a bit of one, but it reminds me of Clash of Kings in that vein - it's clearly going somewhere, it just takes awhile to build momentum. While, plot-wise, it's not as inherently interesting or engrossing, if you're drawn to the character development and complexity of these novels, there's still good stuff here, particularly at the end, when it became un-put-down-able, at least for me.

What I loved most about Feast for Crows was how much it revolved around the women in the story, who seem to be doing a lot of picking up of the pieces after the men are dead or otherwise incapacitated.

Spoiler

You've got the Sand Snakes trying to get revenge for Oberyn, plotting to rise Myrcella to the Iron throne over Tommen, there's Cersei on the Iron Throne, who's carefully watching over Margery, there's Brienne on her quest to find Sansa... even the men seem focused on the women - Sam trying to protect Gilly, Jaime being pretty much ruled by his in-flux emotions over Cersei, Littlefinger trying to raise Sansa up (as well as himself, obviously).

Cersei finally gets the Jaime treatment, i.e. they try and humanize her a bit, which I appreciated, though she's still pretty goddamn awful - one area I think the show improves on the book, actually, is that her awfulness is strangefully lovable in the show. I felt for her more in this book than any of the others, though I wouldn't exactly say she won me over, per se. I feel like Lena Headey is going to completely knock this chapter of Cersei's life out of the park, though. At least I hope so.

I wouldn't call it the finest book of the series, but what are you going to do? Not read it? Stop reading altogether? Oh, please.

Again 3/5 stars.

it was good but i felt like this 4th book didn't flow as nicely or as quickly and was more of a slow read than the previous three. More hum drum that leaves you wondering what happens with the other main characters and if they will ever find each other. I did read the epilogue and found out that book 4 and 5 are meant to be one book but there was so much information there, Martin had to split it up. Certainly hope he ties up all the loose ends in book 5.

How can almost 1000 pages go so quickly?

Esta novela me encantó, me enamoró como lo hizo la primera. Me encantó leer sobre Dorne, mi lugar preferido, ver como Cersei se volvía tan loca, todo el rollo con Brienne y la gente de Dondarrion. Hasta las partes de Samwell y Arya se hicieron pasables. Genial el giro que dio Jon como Lord Comandante y el papel de Aemon Targaryen.

en fin, lo único malo es que me hicieron falta Danny y Tyrion