This is a good book people!

[Ser Luke.]

I didn't like the book until 400 pages in. But after that I loved it, especially the chapters that took place in Dorne. Oh and Cersei's last chapter (of course)

The second half of the book is nearly on par with ASOS IMO

[ductastic]

I'm probably one of those few people who enjoyed the slower pacing. The first three books were so full of events that I sometimes missed a few details. Some POVs weren't my cup of tea, especially the Ironborn ones, however the Dorne chapters made up for that. To read about Cersei's downfall and to see how delusional she can be, well, I really enjoyed that.

[Kronz]

The Dorne plot is definitely more interesting the second time around. When I first read the novel I found it jarring to have chapters with new characters discussing things I didn't really care about, but in the bigger picture they are all right. I still think that the Kingsmoot, and Aeron in particular, are the worst parts of the series. Ser Arys' sex chapter was also a dud and I can't really figure what it added to the story that would not have been accomplished in a paragraph or two elsewhere.

[The last Khaleesi]

This is definitely a good book like many I also found it boring the first time I read it, mainly cos I wanted to hear from the other characters like Jon. But I've come to see that its really interesting and gives us a look at other characters that are interesting but that I've basically overlooked in my rush to get to the more popular characters' chapters

[Albertine]

I guess I'm alone in hating the Cersei chapters? She's the only character in the books who gets her own POV chapter & comes across as shallower, stupider, and less nuanced than she seemed through the eyes of other people. She was such a great character, I thought, terrible and vicious but in books 1-3 she also seemed smart and cunning. In AFFC all her intelligence and political smarts have vanished, and it makes me furious.

I thought AFFC was a strong book, but it also changed my attitude about the series a lot. I went from being really excited to see how everything would turn out, to feeling sort of weary and sad. Brienne, Samwell, and Arya are my favorite characters (so I guess I'm the one person who thinks that all the good POVs ended up in AFFC?), so it just bummed me out to see three people who I thought deserved a break run up against more and more tragedy.

At this point, I'm too invested to stop reading, but I feel like a dog who's gotten one too many kicks.

[axronnin]

I just finished the book, and i enjoyed it so much. While it wasnt as good as book 3 it was still a great read. I think most peoples issue with the book is all the new characters you are introduced to, but it has to be done with all the deaths in Book 3. I found jaime and Brienne stories to be very interesting. ALso the dornish chapters were nice. And is it just me but i now root for Jamie since bout halfway through book 3 only Lannister I hate is Cersei.

[jom]

I've a fairly new reader to the series and just recently got to AFFC. I was a bit afraid of it considering what I had heard about it being "bad". I don't find it bad at all...I should point out I like the political gamesmanship of Ice and Fire so maybe that is why I like it well enough. If this is the worse of the books so far then this ain't bad at all....and I'm all in!

And quite a few people on Star Wars forums insist that the prequel trilogy is just as good as the original.

And in some cases they'd be right.

now that, sir; is not true...the prequels are terrible

Not even remotely.

Meh. As a self-contained trilogy it would be all right I think. It's just the prequel status that makes it so terrible.

Actually, it was the terrible Phantom Menace that created the backlash that leads to the overall opinion. However TPM wasn't any worse than Return of the Jedi, a movie that was panned quite badly back in the day.

jom

[Azor Ahoy!]

I used to revile AFFC. I used to avoid it like the plague.

Then I decided to re-read it.

Cersei's chapters were not all that bad, Jaime's journey back to the riverlands was interesting, especially his meeting with Lancel and Red Ronnet, and the siege of Riverrun. Sam's story was engaging, the Iron Islands were actually quite interesting (although I agree that Aeron could and should have been done away with, as the TV series probably will fold him into Vic or Yara)

In fact, I even enjoyed the Sansa and Arya chapters on my re-read.

But there is one thing I cannot forgive.

BRIENNE.

Seriously, what was GRRM thinking when he decided to give us 8 chapters of Brienne dicking around the riverlands and turning " a highborn maid of three-and-ten" into a phrase 1000 times more annoying than "Nynaeve tugged her braid". Brienne's story should have been 3 chapters, tops, so we could reunify her story with Jaime's in ADWD with a minimum of bloat, and maybe freeing more time for characters I actually cared about, like Jon.