Considering that the carnage tally is pretty low when comparing A Feast For Crows to the previous novel in the series, book 4 is still pretty good. Not great, but good.

Matter of fact, it’s not just the carnage; not a whole lot happens in this book period. It’s mostly just a whole lot of filler and traveling when you think about it because everything seems to be working towards something greater that we will eventually get to at some point. Sure, this could be said for a lot of this series (when exactly is winter going to get here?), but there are still plenty of big events and plot points too fill in the history of Westeros currently being written. But with A Fest For Crows there’s no Red Wedding, the assassins have gone missing in Westeros, no slave armies are fighting beneath dragons, no princes are being impish… Honestly, it’s hard for me to pull anything to mind when trying to remember exactly what I read. It slowly comes back to me, but it fails to be as memorable as the rest of the novels.

Granted, after saying all that it did take about about ¾ of the way through this book for me to even notice this, so George R. R. Martin had to be doing something right in these pages. After all, I still enjoyed reading the novel, and even if the majority of it is filler, it’s still a part of A Song of Ice and Fire. It’s still good.

At least some of my favorite characters return in book 4, including Arya, Brienne, and the ever growing on me Jaime, but the majority of the book forces us in close proximity of Cersei, easily the least appealing character to spend time with. It doesn’t get any better here as she manipulates the kingdom to her liking, and we are stuck with her inner monologue of how she truly feels about those around her and her superiority to them, but I will say where we leave her character may be the most satisfying part of this book. Still, I would have rather read about Jon or Dany if I had the choice. Even Sansa was a relief away from Cersei, and Sansa is Sansa.

Oh well, what book 4 lacks, book 5 should make up for by including the parallel timelines of the characters that didn’t make the pages of A Feast For Crows. Like I said, this novel isn’t bad, but I am definitely glad to be done with it so I can get back to the meat of the story. Unless book 5 has this same problem. I sure hope not…

Final Grade: 3.5 out of 5      Follow @BewareOfTrees