Book Review: A Clash of Kings

Title: A Clash of Kings
Author: George R.R. Martin
Rating: 5/5 Stars
Series: A Song of Ice and Fire (Book 2)

I am in love with this series. The first book was amazing, and the whole second-book pitfall was avoided! I generally do not have good luck with sequels because they always seem repetitive to me... but this seemed fresh, original, and it advanced the plot!

I'm finding it so hard to review this series, mostly because a) it's insanely complicated and b) I can't just point at one thing and go "I LOVED IT" like I love the book as a whole, and so trying to find the little itty-bitty details are hard.

But I'm going to try anyway.

SUPER-LOVES:
+ No one magically gets healed. One of my pet peeves is when someone is dying of an obviously fatal wound but somehow magically are like "I'm okay!" and then go off to win some gigantic battle when 30 seconds ago they were struggling to breathe. Like I get that it's fantasy but let's have some realistic elements please.
+ Also, no one is safe. NO ONE. Martin kills/harms/destroys anyone and anything that he pleases. Who cares if you've had 20 million chapters, when your time has come you're dead! I'm on the edge of my seat the whole time just because the character deaths aren't predictable like in most books. It doesn't matter if it's a main character or some random person who has two lines of text in the whole book and never talks, they could die at any moment. Suspense much?
+ The plot twists are A+. Like one second I think I have everything figured out and the next second someone is giving birth to a shadow on a boat. (Seriously though, what the heck even was this? Like... Just... Help.) You can never settle into this comfortable rut because Martin is continuously throwing bombshells at you, yet it's not so rushed that I have to leave the book and go calm down in a corner because the overload is real. There's like this super tiny line between too much and too little action, and this book walks it PERFECTLY.
+ Betrayal is a major thing, which I guess ties in with plot twists but man you can't trust ANYONE in this book. Like ever. Because if you do you'll wind up with no head. Literally.

Teeny-Tiny List of Dislikes (In tiny font because I'M SO CREATIVE)
- Why did Daenerys have like two chapters in this book and that was it. This was something that bothered me in the last book and instead of getting more chapters I got less! Also literally everybody just wants her for her dragons. Like all of her conversations with people go like:
                      Person: Hey I like you--
                      Daenerys: Awww thank you!
                      Person: --r dragons let's get married so that I can have them.
Seriously I mean I get it it's DRAGONS but still.
- The battle at the end went on WAAAAYYY too long for my tastes. Fire death boom ship ahhhh I GOT IT.
- The whole birthing-shadows scene I just don't understand...

This was still an awesome book, and I still stand by my statement that everyone should read this awesome series. And by everyone I mean everyone in appropriate audiences like not a 10 year-old or anything that would probably not end well.

See this review on Goodreads.

Book Review: A Game of Thrones

Title: A Game of Thrones
Author: George R.R. Martin
Rating: 5/5 Stars
Series: A Song of Ice and Fire (Book 1)

Why is there not an option for more than 5 stars? Like if I could I would rate this book 224 stars without hesitation (224 is one of my favorite numbers because 2+2 =4 and 2x2=4 and 4/2 = 2 and a bunch of other math calculations that make my slightly number/pattern-obsessed self happy).

So, I have major problems writing review for books that I love this much for a couple of reasons:

1. My brain doesn't function normally because I am so obsessed
2. I don't want to super-analyze it because I LOVE IT and I don't want to ruin it

I am going to list a small list of like super-loves and a teeny-tiny list of no-likes and then pat myself on the back for being able to review a book that I love this much.

SUPER-LOVES:
+ One of my pet-peeves is authors refusing to kill their characters even when they are CLEARLY dead. Mission Impossible? Dude's dead. James Bond? Dead. You get my drift. So the fact that Martin can clearly see when a character is coming to the end of their time/arc/whatever and not only kills them off but kills them off in a manner that still fits the storyline? Happy me. I realize this sounds like I'm wishing people/characters dead and I'm not, I'm just tired of movie franchises/books/TV shows allowing characters that clearly should not have survived just magically pop up and be like "I'm good!" like no you just hit your head on a doorframe going like a million miles per hour I'm sorry but you are not okay. So basically, yay for realistic elements! Even though it's a fantasy!
+ The length. I love love love bigger books (but only if they are good because otherwise tears) and Martin managed to create like 800+ pages of pure awesomeness and I was obsessed. Still am obsessed. This allowed for plenty of character development, world-building, etc. It didn't feel rushed at all, yet it didn't drag, and when I reached the end I was desperate for more. And there are 4 (and, hopefully, eventually 6) more books to go through!
+ The characters. The characters that you should hate were just so despicable that you had no choice, and you loved the characters that you should love. The others you were left to decide for yourself, but they were just so well-written that by the end you had a firm opinion on them, there weren't any characters where I was just like "meh"
+ Daenerys is officially my new favorite character in all of ever (sorry Kell). I'm not exactly sure why I liked her so much, but it was just one of those things where I kept looking forward to her chapters and her story and I was like "Hurry up and shush Ned I wanna know what happens with Daenerys."
+ Dragons. If this needs an explanation I just... don't know what to do with you. Sorry.

Teeny-Tiny List of Dislikes:
- So. Many. Characters. So. Many. Names. (internal meltdown)
- Ned = Lord Stark. Didn't know that.
- Ned like dominated this book I wanted more Daenerys!!!

I cannot emphasize enough how much I loved this book. If you can only read one book this year, read this one.

Note on the illustrated version versus regular: I did not pick this for the pictures, it was just available sooner than the normal version and I'm impatient. I mean the pictures are cool but they don't make or break the book.

See this review on Goodreads.