Honestly, I couldn't believe that the book was over. I got it on Kindle, so I wasn't really aware of how far along in the book I was. I happened to glance down at the percentage line at the bottom, and I was 94% of the way through the book! I was shocked. I heard the book was over 1,000 pages, so how had I got through it so quickly? And how was the book ending when nothing actually happened?? Then it dawned on me-- all those pages that I had clicked my way through, because nothing was happening (or because Martin was going into painstaking detail describing someone being burned, raped, or mutilated). I had unwittingly skipped my way through the book.

I was crushed. I had been looking forward to curling up with my favorite character: Daenerys and her dragons (as the title led me to believe), hopefully heading to Westoros to give the evil Cersei her due. (though Jaime I had started to grow fond of after that last book) But the dragons are chained up (except for an exciting scene in the fighting pits), and Daenerys has lost the fire she had when she double-crossed the slavers and burned them all in book three.

Tyrion, my second favorite character (at least since Martin killed off/exiled/changed all the Starks), doesn't do a darn thing the whole book.

Jon Snow proves himself totally unfit to command the Wall, and gets killed for it. But what else is he supposed to do when apparently there isn't a decent man of the Nights Watch left anyway??

There are a whole bunch of new perspectives that I didn't care at all about. The problem with killing off all your main characters is that your readers are no longer emotionally involved in the story. So we (readers) don't feel bad about leaving all these newcomers to whatever fate Martin may have in store for them.

I never thought I would say this about a thousand page book, but it ended too fast. It could have ended even sooner, but I kept expecting something to happen, so I kept reading. A good editor would have cut this down to 200 pages, tops. Frankly, I could have done without the whole book, except the scene where Daenerys first rides the dragon.
Honestly, I couldn't believe that the book was over. I got it on Kindle, so I wasn't really aware of how far along in the book I was. I happened to glance down at the percentage line at the bottom, and I was 94% of the way through the book! I was shocked. I heard the book was over 1,000 pages, so how had I got through it so quickly? And how was the book ending when nothing actually happened?? Then it dawned on me-- all those pages that I had clicked my way through, because nothing was happening (or because Martin was going into painstaking detail describing someone being burned, raped, or mutilated). I had unwittingly skipped my way through the book. I was crushed. I had been looking forward to curling up with my favorite character: Daenerys and her dragons (as the title led me to believe), hopefully heading to Westoros to give the evil Cersei her due. (though Jaime I had started to grow fond of after that last book) But the dragons are chained up (except for an exciting scene in the fighting pits), and Daenerys has lost the fire she had when she double-crossed the slavers and burned them all in book three. Tyrion, my second favorite character (at least since Martin killed off/exiled/changed all the Starks), doesn't do a darn thing the whole book. Jon Snow proves himself totally unfit to command the Wall, and gets killed for it. But what else is he supposed to do when apparently there isn't a decent man of the Nights Watch left anyway?? There are a whole bunch of new perspectives that I didn't care at all about. The problem with killing off all your main characters is that your readers are no longer emotionally involved in the story. So we (readers) don't feel bad about leaving all these newcomers to whatever fate Martin may have in store for them. I never thought I would say this about a thousand page book, but it ended too fast. It could have ended even sooner, but I kept expecting something to happen, so I kept reading. A good editor would have cut this down to 200 pages, tops. Frankly, I could have done without the whole book, except the scene where Daenerys first rides the dragon.