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Were you pleasently surprised?


YuvalTheVal

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I have to say, I heard so many terrible things about the book, that I was preparing myself for something really bad. I just finished it, and eventually not only did I enjoy it, I actually thought it was pretty fantastic. Not on the level of 1 and 3 but definetly gives 2 a close fight. Gets really good from about the halfway point and the finale is very satisfying.

I wanted to ask, even if you don't think it's fantastic, were you pleasently surprised too after all the bad reviews? or did you think they were 100% justified?

(sorry if the grammer is bad, not my native language)

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I liked it, one of my favourites in the series. I thought Jaime's chapters were wonderful, and there was more political wrangling in this one. I didn't enjoy Brienne's chapters, but they were still better than the drivel that came out of Bran in aDwD. I suppose ultimately it comes down to preference, I for instance love the Ironborn, but I know and understand why some people don't.

Glad you're enjoying the series!

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I think the bad reviews are mostly from people who had to wait five years before they could read it, because it is relatively low-paced and lacks the appearance of a lot of fan favourite characters.

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The 2nd half of the book was pretty good. What really bothered me though was the Ironborn chapters. For some reason they all seemed like they were 30 pages long. They were such a drag. Doesn't help that they are characters I don't even care about. The opposite of this would be your favorite characters having short chapters, I guess.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I just love how GRRM always manages to dance around my expectations. I was certain that this book would be like the others, but it's slightly different because of so many new characters - many of whom I love to hate. But I just think it adds so much to the depth of the story and to make the world of A Song of Ice and Fire seem so much bigger. I really enjoyed this book just as I enjoyed the others.

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I think in hindsight I appreciate this book a lot more now than I did when I was reading it. I found myself kind of bummed that I wouldn't be able to follow the POV of Cersei anymore. Sure she's crazy, but that's what makes her POV awesome. I had a hard time with the Ironborn chapters just because I couldn't tie them in with anything else in the book. With Dorne, you atleast have Cersei's daughter (I can never remember her name, poor thing) and the plot line with that.

It doesn't seem to have as much pizzazz as the other books but it creates a great underpinning for the entire series. Overall, it's totally worth the read.

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I'm 3/4 of the way through, and LOVING it! I was prepared to be bored out of my mind as well, but I think it's just different storytelling than the previous books. The brilliance of this book is much more subtle and cunning, and I love all the personalities that are starting to really show themselves/change. I love the addition of Cersei's POV; we've always known she was cruel, but now it's clear that she is borderline crazy, with just enough brains to be truly dangerous. It definitely doesn't match the third book's brilliance, but it's not the snooze fest I was made to think it would be, either. :)

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Yep, the "bad" reviews were due to waiting 5 years for a sequel for the Red wedding and getting something completely different for it. Miost of AFFC is about the calm before the storm, and dealing with a vast array of people we didn't know and didn't really want to know about at first.

Frankly, I can't think of any new character in the last two books that I would care much about, or cry over when they die, unlike the initial characters.

By bad, I recall people saying it wasn't up to a Storm of Swords and it isn't. Nobody meant it was a bad book by any means

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