A Feast for Crows is the fourth book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin. [Here my reviews of the other three books.]

Plot:
A Feast for Crows continues the storylines of the characters who remain in the South of the Seven Kingdoms and in Dorne. While the number of Kings fighting over the Iron Throne is greatly decimated, the game of thrones is far from over.

Despite A Feast for Crows not having most of my favorite characters (Daenerys, Tyrion, Bran, Jon), I enjoyed it as much as I did the other books. Other characters just took over as favorites. And it was a surprisingly quick read for such a massive book.

First let me go on a tangent: Since I knew beforehand that A Feast for Crows was only half the story (the Southern half), I wanted to wait until the paperback of A Dance with Dragons came out (the Northern half of the story) until I started to read it. But then I went to Prague and in the hostel we were staying in there was a book exchange shelf. And since I always look at books no matter where I am (and even though I had brought 3 books on a party weekend trip where I knew I wouldn’t get much reading done), I browsed through the shelf and lo and behold: there was the hardcover of A Dance with Dragons. Of course, I immediately snagged and bagged it and brought it home with me and started reading A Feast for Crows. [I’ve got a bit of a bad conscience because I didn’t leave any books there, effectively betraying the “exchange” thought, but that was just too much temptation.]

And I’m really glad that I didn’t have to wait longer for either book – even though it will make waiting for The Winds of Winter that much harder.

[Here be SPOILERS. LOADS OF SPOILERS.]

Arya was always a favorite of mine. On the one hand I hope that she gets to be the kick-ass assassin she so desperately wants to be, on the other hand she’s just a little girl who is lonely and has nobody to help her deal with her rage other than through revenge. Which is bad enough.

I have to admit that Brienne’s part got a bit long sometimes but I’m still hoping (maybe against hope) that she’s not dead yet after all. And can I just say that I suspected Catherine to be who she turned out to be pretty early on; but Zombie!Catherine is one of the most disgusting things in the series.

I was surprised by how much I liked Jaime (I had to keep reminding myself that he threw Bran of that fucking tower because he is such a good and likeable guy in this book) and Alayne. She really is an excellent development for Sansa, who finally seems to grow into her own. Even though she doesn’t really seem to get how extremely creepy Petyr’s relationship with her is. At least she shows that she has strengths and that she’s not a complete dimwit.

And I did not expect Cersei to be a good Queen, but I did not expect her to make such a bad job of it. It is incredible how many short-sighted, idiotic decisions she can make in such a short time – and all believing that she’s a freaking genius.

But I really enjoyed the Dornish point of view – I’ll be interested to see how that one pans out.

Summarising: Awesome series, awesome books, awesome characters. I love it.