Well I’ve finally made it to the end of this behemoth of a book! If I’d bought it differently, it would actually have been two books, but my set had it all in one, so it was a long hard slog to make it to the end!

Even though it’s taken me almost two weeks to read the 1000+ pages, I was engrossed throughout. If I hadn’t had work to go to, I’d probably have read it in a few days!

By this point in the story, we’re so involved in all the characters that you’ve got a definite emotional attachment to your favourites, even though the start of the book didn’t have too much of my personal favourites.

It was slightly strange seeing characters you thought were long gone making a come back under a different guise. The first time it happened it took me a while to figure out, but then I was on my lookout for it happening again.

I did find that I had a bit of deja vu throughout the book, with Martin repeating certain phrases that stood out quite a lot to me. There were also some points where I did find myself drifting off from the book and turning pages without realising what was happening. so at some points I could tell I wasn’t enjoying it as much as other parts.

The ending though. Oh, the ending. I was reading it at my desk at lunchtime and it was like gut punch after gut punch. Not what I expected to happen to conclude the book, although by now I don’t think I should be surprised.

However much I’ve enjoyed reading this series, I am very much looking forward to getting back to something a little more light-hearted with a little less death and war. It’ll be nice to make some more progress through my to-read list too!