A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin

Wow, it is amazing what hours of lying in bed sick, followed by a snow day, will do for your chances of finishing a book...all 600+ pages of it.

Let us begin with the unfortunate fact that, when last I had read Martin's saga, it was probably two years ago. It is a very difficult thing to remember that many characters and their story lines. I found myself constantly mis-remembering things, only to (thankfully) have them later corrected by the author. And, of course, let's not forget that he only told half of the characters' stories. Oy.

That being said, the first part of the book was the hardest, as I tried to remember just who the bloody hell everyone was. Jaime I remembered, and Ceresi...Jon Snow, of course...but that was about it. Pieces fell into place, however, and as I became reacquainted, I came to the following conclusions:

Ceresi is a bitch and I hope she gets what is coming to her.

Tommen may grow up to be an acceptable human being, if he can stay alive that long.

Jaime is still creepy, what with the sister-loving and all, but is a person I begin to feel sorry for and actually may like. Since he is a bad guy, what else is there for me to do?

Sweetrobin is a prissy boy and I hope he meets a similar end to his mother.

Littlefinger creeps me out. Sub-thought: I worry about Sansa.

Arya is very resourceful; I hope her ending is not ill.

Samwell...poor Samwell. He tries so hard.

Obviously, since I finished the book in such a short amount of time, I'd have to say I enjoyed it, but that first part...DRAGGED. And I still don't understand what the prologue had to do with anything.