I have to get back into the swing of writing these reviews. I’ve been reading non-stop lately so have quite a bit to catch up on.

I’m going to start this game of catch up with a combined review. Several months ago I finished reading A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin, but never wrote a review on it. Since I just recently finished Dance with Dragons I figured I should combine the review instead of just never doing a review on Feast for Crows to begin with.

Anyway, when I started reading The Song of Ice and Fire series I was well behind my friends who were reading them. They were sure to not give away anything about the series, but I did hear some conflicts about A Feast for Crows. Namely that there is no point to reading it. Which is a lie.

A Feast for Crows is such a tease. A Storm of Swords leaves the reader eager to delve into the next book in order to answer the hundreds of questions that were going through their head. I’m sorry to say, my friends, that you will not be getting many answers to those questions from A Feast for Crows because the fourth book follows a completely different cast of characters. All the characters who were left out of the third book switch places and become the new focus of the series.

Now I can’t go into too much detail about the fourth book because… well, honestly I read it months ago and all the books just end up blurring together anyway. But I will say that the fourth installment was not a waste of time. In fact, I enjoyed seeing the other characters that weren’t mentioned cause it gives you the view of what was going on with them in the last book. The only thing I didn’t like about it was that it was a lot slower than the third book. But that’s understandable. George R. R. Martin made the mistake of building the third book so high up that he had to take it down in order to build it back up again.

That’s when the fifth book comes in. Dance with Dragons is the latest installment of the series (and who knows when the sixth one will appear?). This one goes back to our good friends Jon Snow, Daenarys Targaryen, and Tyrion Lannister, with cameo’s from Jamie and Cersei Lannister, Arya Stark, as well as the Dornish prince.

While this book picked up speed, the beginning was a bit slow still. However, by the end I had gone through a roller coaster of emotions similar to the ones I felt reading Storm of Swords and found myself, once again, in a love/hate relationship with George R. R. Martin. His writing style remains unchanged: intriguing, giving enough detail to reel the reader in and then leaving it at a point where he leaves the reader begging for more. It honestly made me upset that I have no idea when the sixth book is coming out, and the fact that it took approximately 5 years after the fourth book was out before the fifth book was released made me resign myself to years of waiting and wondering.

I know this review didn’t go into much detail as my past ones did, but again, this series gets to a point where you don’t remember which events happened in which books. Overall, it’s an amazing series and I really would encourage anyone to go and read it. It may destroy your life a little (or a lot depending on your attachment to the characters), but it is well worth it.