Just starting A Feast for Crows

[southernkhaleesi]

Hey everybody!!!

So I started reading the game of thrones series during my sophomore year of high school and I'm currently a freshman in college. I got through books 1-3 jut fine but I have not been able to get into AFfC. I know that many of my favorite characters are not in this book and it is making it difficult for me to pick up the book and read it. I really want to finish the series but I am just having so much trouble. I was wondering if any of you lovely people had any helpful information that can assist me in the reading of this book. Even if you tell me about a really cool part in the book that you think I should read, I would be most grateful. Also if you think that I should just stat reading the series over from the beginning since it has been a very long time since I've read the books I would like to know that as well.

Thanks,

T-kellie

[Facha Martell]

aFFC has some POVs that are quite boring, but the ones from Cersei and Jaime are really really cool. Also the Greyjoy POVs are good.

In my opinion, AFFC it's a more "psychological" book, it doesn't have as much action as aSOS but you get to know deeper some important characters.

[SerHodor]

Hey everybody!!!

So I started reading the game of thrones series during my sophomore year of high school and I'm currently a freshman in college. I got through books 1-3 jut fine but I have not been able to get into AFfC. I know that many of my favorite characters are not in this book and it is making it difficult for me to pick up the book and read it. I really want to finish the series but I am just having so much trouble. I was wondering if any of you lovely people had any helpful information that can assist me in the reading of this book. Even if you tell me about a really cool part in the book that you think I should read, I would be most grateful. Also if you think that I should just stat reading the series over from the beginning since it has been a very long time since I've read the books I would like to know that as well.

Thanks,

T-kellie

While not the most exciting book in the series, it wasn't "too bad", IMO, but then again, I can see how others might find it boring.

However, the way I approached this book was two-fold.

Firstly, I kept in mind that the events in this book are happening for a reason, and most likely setting the stage for bigger things to come. Any tale has a climax (which IMO was Storm of Swords), and naturally there is a lull after the climax..... just the way it is.

Secondly... just enjoy the scenery and the new people. I took Feast for Crows as a chance to further explore and learn about the broader world/universe created by GRRM in this series. Smell the flowers.... mingle with the townfolk..... things pick back up. I promise!

[Jez Targaryen]

My advice for starting Feast for Crows is just to keep and open mind, and go into it with the awareness that (1) Dany, Tyrion, and Jon don't play a direct part, and (2) that it is not nearly as action packed as Kings or Swords were; to my mind, it (and Dance with Dragons) is more about setting the stage for the final climax.

If you read through some of the threads and, say, reviews on Amazon, you'll find pretty quickly that there are massive differences of opinion as to whether the book is good or not and the how good the new POVs are. Particularly for the Brienne, Dorne, and Iron Islands POVs, some people absolutely hate them and some absolutely love them. So again, keep an open mind.

For what its worth, I loved the book. :)

[kirt]

I know that many of my favorite characters are not in this book and it is making it difficult for me to pick up the book and read it.

If that's the case, maybe you're simply needing http://boiledleather.com/post/25902554148/a-new-reader-friendly-combined-reading-order-for-a ?

Didn't use it myself, I just know such a thing exists. I've finished AFFC quite recently and I'm far from the end of ADWD, so I cannot judge whether this is good work, but I believe a lot of smart people reviewed it, so hopefully it is (though I, for one, would rather feel like Samwell II should precede the Jon's plot). Just saying there's a thing like that, maybe you'd want to try it.

I can tell you which parts I personally liked, though 2 most important things has already been said. The first one is that the definition of "a really cool part" you'd like to have pointed out, divides opinions more than in the previous books. So such a list can give you anything only should some other people tell you their views and you can try to make some wider view from them.

The second thing is that, indeed, this book is much less about the action and more about the character development. When I've read the reviews of AGOT, some of the reviewers claimed that one of the weaker points is that the characters are not very complicated. And they were quite right about it then, in AGOT really most of the characters did appear to be quite simple, a lot of them even I'd say one-dimensional, but later on we saw that GRRM only wanted us to think so before he started to mess the story up. Character development became more and more important since then and now's the time when GRRM took a little break and made this aspect the leading one. Which can be good or bad, depending on your view, but obviously will lead to a drop in the action.

That said, I won't tell you that you have to read it. Some people may not read the series at all, so everything that is better than that is - at least if one agrees it's a good series ;) - well... better. So you can read the brief summaries on http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Chapters_Table_of_contents or more detailed ones on the blogs like, for instance, this one: http://www.tor.com/features/series/a-read-of-ice-and-fire Or you can do anything between, read some chapters and some summaries, read summaries and then those parts of the chapter you think you want to explore more. But still, if you want to read the series, the author of the series made it in the shape you see before you, whether you're glad about it or not ;)

Gosh, it turned out to be much longer than expected :D So maybe I won't try to make my list of "like and dislike" now. Better still, before I even try to take any bit of objectivity, you try to tell us what you liked about the series to date and what you did not, this may help a lot. (No truisms, of course you liked the 2nd half of the ASOS and of course you found most of Jon's plot in ACOK boring (or didn't you? :D). But did you like the slower 1st halfs of ACOK and ASOS, did you like plots like Jaime's one, that apart from some moments of action was more centered on his person itself? And so on.)