A mess. Unreadable except by devoted followers of GRRM's series. I read it only because I wanted to see how the books differ from the series on TV. They do, in substantial ways, which makes it fun :) Structurally, however, the last two books... GAH. For example (spoiler alert) at the end of Feast of Crows, Sam has already left The Wall and had many adventures on the road. At the beginning of Dance of Dragons, Sam is, confusingly, still at The Wall.

The book is very poorly edited. All writers seem to fall in love with one word or another. In this book it's "jape", used instead of "joke." A few times is okay, but when a word sticks out in a reader's mind because of overuse, that's bad--it distracts from the story. Same with "leal".

It's worth reading but only because it's part of the series.
A mess. Unreadable except by devoted followers of GRRM's series. I read it only because I wanted to see how the books differ from the series on TV. They do, in substantial ways, which makes it fun :) Structurally, however, the last two books... GAH. For example (spoiler alert) at the end of Feast of Crows, Sam has already left The Wall and had many adventures on the road. At the beginning of Dance of Dragons, Sam is, confusingly, still at The Wall. The book is very poorly edited. All writers seem to fall in love with one word or another. In this book it's "jape", used instead of "joke. " A few times is okay, but when a word sticks out in a reader's mind because of overuse, that's bad--it distracts from the story. Same with "leal". It's worth reading but only because it's part of the series.