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: Here Lies Daniel Tate

Title: Here Lies Daniel Tate
Author: Cristin Terrill
Rating: 4/5 Stars
Series: N/A

Wow. My brain needs a couple seconds to catch up... it's already been like a half hour so maybe I need more than just a couple seconds. Maybe like a couple million seconds. *deep breath*

Here we go.

This book had so many twists and turns and surprises and man did I feel left behind. I feel like it would have been like riding a rollercoaster except I've never been on one because I am super afraid of heights and sharp drops and falling and yeah tangent whoops. Back on track. (Get it, rollercoaster? Track? Never mind.)

So we basically start off following this boy who is NOT Daniel Tate. And then IS Daniel Tate (for like 20 pages). And then he is NOT Daniel Tate again. And I WAS confused. But no honestly this was so confusing. I didn't figure out what was going on until like 100 pages into the book and that's 25% OF THE BOOK! But once I kinda-sorta figured out what was going on it was actually really good!

So "Daniel" basically gets wrapped up into this super big con where he winds up pretending to be "Daniel Tate," who mysteriously disappeared six years ago. At first he figures he will just use it as a helpful delay so that he can slip away, but everything moves much faster than he thought and he winds up being brought "home" to California.

Enter one of the most twisted, confusing, and secretive literary families that I have ever met. The Tate are just... wow. The only one I liked was Mia because she was the only one that made any sense. But basically everyone in this family has a secret to hide, and wow is it hard to figure everything out.

There were a ton of plot twists, some that were really predictable and some that blew my mind. But the ending? That was like an entirely different level.

LIKES:
+ The title (Here Lies Daniel Tate) can be connected in so many different ways throughout the book. Because "lies" can have so many different meanings, and I felt almost like it was a treasure hunt or whatever to connect "lies" to what was going on in the book and I felt so smart when I figured it out 😂
+ The ending was so unexpected yet I feel like it fit perfectly with the book. I almost feel like if it had ended any other way that it would have seemed "wrong" and would have been disappointing but for once I loved the ending! (I normally hate the endings of books but this was awesome)
+ All of the twists and turns were so confusing yet it kept me on the edge of my seat. (Although I will have to admit that this book was really not good for my health because I am a very anxious/stressed out person normally and this book just made it worse) I was constantly freaking out that "Daniel" would get discovered and trying to figure out how he would keep up this con and how the book would end...
+The story just really captured my attention, and once I started I couldn't stop because...

DISLIKES:
- THERE ARE NO CHAPTERS! Just little section break things so if you are like me and you need to stop at a chapter that is a multiple of either 5 or 10 (preferably 10) this book just wreaks havoc on your brain, which can't figure out where to stop and then you wind up forgetting to have dinner (true story) because how do you just stop in the middle of a random page?!
- There was one plot twist that was SUPER predictable, and it was supposed to be like the main plot twist but I called it on like page 50 or something so it wasn't a surprise. At all.
- The first 100 pages or so were really confusing it took a while for my brain to catch up.

This book was really good. The only reason that I'm not giving it 5 stars is because of the fact that it took me so long to figure out what was going on, and for the super predictable plot twist. But I would seriously recommend reading this book, it was awesome!

See this review on Goodreads.