The end (for now) of A Song of Ice and Fire

    I finally finished the 5th book, A Dance with Dragons (or as I always call them, dar-gones).  I understand now why everyone always talks about how boring the feast and war meeting portions are.  It took me ages to get through those parts, simply because there is so much to try to keep up with.
     Throughout the series, I found myself actually wanting some of the major players in the war of the five kings to get killed off, if only to reduce the amount of names to keep up with.  It felt at times like I was back in high school trying to memorize all the general's names before a big test in history class.
     That being said, I still absolutely love these books and I'm glad I read them, although fair warning, you will be ridiculously angry at the end of book 5 if you grew as close to some of the characters as I did.  Worst cliffhanger ever considering it's usually 3-5 years between each of the books in the series.  HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO WAIT THAT LONG! Sorry, had to get that out of my system.
     Even if you've seen the show, read the books, because there are parts which aren't included in the show, different timelines than the show has, and much more in depth thoughts of the characters. If you don't feel like really trying to keep up with all the "war" aspects of the book, I do recommend watching the show first.  It's what I did, and it helped me understand the first 3 books way better.

Series Rating:  4.5 out of 5 stars

Oh, Game of Thrones, why do you do this to me??!

     Okay, so I'm finally through most of the series that's been released so far.  I still have about 200 pages to go in A Feast For Crows (4th book) and then I think I'll take a break before reading A Dance With Dragons.  I have too many other books I've been wanting to read that I've let gather dust while I read these, so it's time to do some catching up.
     So, my thoughts.....I love the show and I have to say, seeing the show first actually helped me in understanding a lot of the plots in the books.  Otherwise, I'm pretty sure I would have been almost totally lost.  The only downside I really see to watching the show before reading the books is, of course, not feeling the crazy emotions when George RR Martin tears out your heart when you're least expecting it. Now that I've come to a book that hasn't been a season in the show yet, I realize how much you can be caught off guard when a main character dies.  It's almost like "They drank wine, had a feast and, oh, by the way (insert character name here) got killed and his head was put on a pike a few days ago."
     I do love the books, but the fourth book is taking me forever to get through as I'm now having to flip back and forth between the appendix and the story when these characters I've never heard of before start showing up.  Hopefully over the next two days I can finish it completely and then move on with my life for a couple months until I get some of these other books read. So far though, this series definitely gets put at the top of my favorites, right alongside The Dark Tower.