Title: A Feast for Crows
Author: George R.R. Martin
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Summary (with spoilers):
This is the fourth installment in the A Song of Ice and Fire series. As usual, each chapter follows the viewpoint of a specific character.
Cersei Lannister: Power hungry Cersei is queen regent now that Tommen is on the throne, but too young to rule. She puts her evil schemes into play, but makes the mistake of giving the Faith permission to build an army. In the middle of a plot to discredit Margaery, Tommen's wife, Cersei is locked up by the high septon and accused of various sins. She writes to Jamie to save her, but he does not come back to King's Landing to rescue her.
Jamie Lannister: He manages to get Riverrun to surrender without a battle. Spends the entire book freaking out about how Cersei is sleeping with other people.
Brienne: The Maid of Tarth is on a quest to find Sansa Stark (and also hopes to find Arya, once she learns Arya is alive.) Brienne picks up some companions on her quest, including Poddrick (previously squire to Tyrion), and Ser Hyle, who proposes marriage. She slays some outlaws from previous books (Shagga, etc.), runs into Gendry at an inn, and saves a bunch of children by fighting Biter, even though she is grievously injured. Brienne is delivered to Lady Stoneheart (the reanimated Catelyn Stark), but Stoneheart believes Brienne has betrayed her, since she's carrying a Lannister sword. Brienne and friends are hanged, although it's ambiguous whether they die or whether they will be saved at the last second.
Sansa Stark: She's up in the Eyrie with Petyr (Littlefinger) being all creepy while she pretends to be his daughter. Petyr succeeds in keeping control of the Eyrie, at least for now.
Ayra Stark: Arya ends up as an apprentice at the temple of the Many-Faced God in Braavos. She runs into Sam, although they don't know each other, and she kills a brother of the Knight's Watch who has strayed from his path. When she tells her mentor at the temple what she's done, he gives her a drink. The next day, she wakes up blind.
Samwell Tarly: Sam journeys to the Citadel in Oldtown to become a maester. On the journey, Aemon dies, and Sam sleeps with Gilly. In Oldtown, he meets up with apprentice Pate in the last chapter. If the reader can remember several hundred pages back to the prologue, we know that Pate has been killed, so this guy must be an impostor.
Meanwhile, we get the viewpoints of a bunch of random characters in Dorne and the Iron Islands. Arianne in Dorne tries to form a rebellion to have Marcella crowned queen of the Seven Kingdom. However, that backfires and her lover, Ser Oakheart, dies in the skirmish that follows their discovery. On the Iron Islands, a kingsmoot decides for Euron Crow's Eye over his brother Victarion and Asha Greyjoy. The islanders start raiding territories in the Seven Kingdoms.
My Thoughts:
For such a huge book, not much happened. Cersei does her weird plots (and her chapters take up the most out of any character in the book), but it's so clear that she's power mad that it's not much fun to read. Also, she sits through some boring council meetings, which means we have to sit through them too. And that bit with Lady Merryweather... It seemed like George R.R. Martin just got bored and wanted to throw in some sexy times. Didn't seem necessary.
Brienne wanders around doing nothing for most of the book. I like this character; she's one of the only unequivocally good people in the book. I wish her story had been better. We know where Sansa is, so it's not exciting for us to watch Brienne searching. We know Brienne is looking in the wrong places. Also, her ending was so unfair and sudden (although I don't believe she's dead).
What's with Ayra randomly killing some dude?! So unnecessary. Is George R.R. Martin trying to show that Ayra (whose been painted as a likable character up until this point) is actually evil? Because most good people don't go around murdering people who annoy them. I know his characters are all supposed to be a little rotten, but I don't know if I can go on liking Ayra if she's going to behave this way.
Those are my main problems with this book. I liked Sam's story and was happy to see more of him. I'm also interested to see how Petyr's plans play out, as he seems smarter than the other power hungry characters.
Of course, many of the main POV characters were left out of this book, since it was split into two novels. Here's hoping that the next book will be better.
