A Feast for Crows Review

    Last night I finished reading A Feast for Crows. The fourth book in George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" saga. For those who watch the HBO show and have not read the books, don't worry I won't spoil anything. You are safe with me.

      I'll take each house and give a brief overview on where they start off in this book. I'll start with House Lannister. The book begins and you see House Lannister in disarray. After the events of the third book "A Storm of Swords", you see that the Lannisters are very divided. One thing I love about this book is that it has Cersei point of view chapters so you see how crazy her mind is. Basically her chapters chronicle her descent into madness. she grows increasingly paranoid she thinks everybody is out to get her. Also you see Jaime try to redeem himself more. Towards the end of the third book you see him start to become a good character. That continues in A Feast for Crows as he continues to redeem his honor. Tyrion is not in this book, but I'll talk more about that later.  


    The Greyjoy's are also a house divided. In the books Balon Greyjoy is dead. I just want to point that out because I've heard in the show he's still alive. He died in the book before the Red Wedding. His brothers and his daughter are trying to settle who is Balon's heir to the Seastone Chair.


   The Starks are still scattered, Winterfell is still in ruin. Bran isn't in this book. The Starks that are featured in the book are Sansa and Arya. It's tricky because they go by different names to hide themselves from their enemies.  



   Finally we are introduced more to the Martells of Dorne. We met the Red Viper in book three but we find out more about them, who they are, and what Dorne is like. One thing worth pointing out is that women have status in Dorne. you may remember in book two "A Clash of Kings" Tyrion sent princess Myrcella to Dorne and the Dornishmen believe her to be Joffrey's heir. 

  A Feast for Crows does take awhile to get going and compared to the previous book there's a lower body count. Six characters died, one more is dying, and two imprisoned. I'm going to give A Feast for Crows 4.5 out of 5 stars because my favorite characters are not in it. George R.R. Martin originally was writing more chapters when he decided the book was too long. So he split them. A Feast for Crows mainly focuses on the events of King's Landing. While A Dance with Dragons focuses on events in the East and on the Wall. That is why Tyrion, Stannis, Bran, Jon, and Dany are not in this book. They will be in A Dance with Dragons.