Ok, finished AFFC. I think it was almoooost as good as the other books. The last 200 pages were
really close to following the structure of the other books when MAJOR EVENTS began to happen:
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Jaime solving Riverrun, Bren fighting Biter, Cersei having her plans unraveled and thrown in a cell in the Sept.
But then the last 100 pages, instead of continuing to be CONCLUSION MAJOR CHAPTERS for all the characters, were a bunch of transitory chapters setting up the next set:
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Sansa bringing Robert down the Eyrie and learning about her soon to be marriage; Sam getting into Oldtown and telling the Archmaester his story; Jaime ordering Riverrun cleanup
so it kind of toppled down in the end. There wasn't even an epilogue chapter or anything. Didn't feel as satisfying because of that. A different set of last 100 pages and I would have put it up there with books 1-3, but if those are 5/5 star books, this is more like a 4/5 star. It's entertaining, very very well written, the characters are interesting with lots of good scenes, but yeah not a whole lot happens and every other chapter feels about 10 pages too long. I used to finish chapters in one sitting, but with AFFC I'd sometimes stop 3/4ths through a chapter and finish it up next time.
Man, AFFC could have been as MAJOR as books 1-3 if it just went a step further:
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In having the rest of Cersei's story play out completely in AFFC; Jaime abandoning her and then hopefully her getting destroyed at trail and dying.
AFFC though was Jaime & Brienne. Their adventures were really good an interesting. They were like grown up versions of Arya's adventure in Books 1&2. Cersei started out lolz but just got really lame and I kind of hated all her chapters. Samwell was ok but a little slow and dull. Arya & Sansa actually switched in AFFC. It used to be in Books 2/3 that Arya had good chapters and Sansa had boring ones. In AFFC, ALL of Sansa's chapters were awesome, she really needed more of them. Meanwhile Arya went from having an incredibly interesting story in Books 1-3 to having a couple chapters of standing around doing nothing
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outside of the awesome part where she murders Dareon the deserter from the wall by slitting his throat and tossing him in the river
Arya needs to move on and start having an adventure again.
My favorite part in the book though was:
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When Margery is talking to Cersei in her cell at the end, and Margery realizes Cersei set it all up and she calls he a stupid bitch to her face. So satisfying! Jaime burning the HELP ME letter from Cersei was great as well
Will start ADWD in a couple of weeks. Just gonna get the hardcover because no way I'm waiting until March 2013 to read it. I can't wait months between books! (I'm going to be so screwed after I catch up and have to wait years ;_;)