A Storm of Swords (most probably contains spoilers)

A Storm of Swords is so heartbreaking.  And so very human for a fantasy novel.

Will the any of the Starks be together again?  There are so many ALMOST moments in this 3rd book.  Arya almost getting to see her mother and older brother again... and of course they get slaughtered before she gets to them.  Bran meeting Jon Snow's best friend, Sam Tarly, then planning to go to The Wall; instead, they go under it or something, Sam then goes back to Castle Black to see Jon is back from his ranger-ing as well.  Sandor Clegane inviting Sansa to run off with him but she refuses so Sandor decides to kidnap Arya.  Gah, it's all so frustrating.  And so sad.  Especially for Arya.  How ever are they going to do this on film?  How?!

With this book, I've fully appreciated the POV chapter format.  The story moves steadily forward.  So while Jon is off romancing the pants off Ygritte, Davos Seaworth becomes the Hand of the King, and Daenerys is burning down a village.  The moment I totally got it was during Brynden Tully's wedding to Roslin Frey.  The wedding scene itself wasn't narrated.  Between the scene before the wedding and the reception, a different character POV was inserted.  It's a smart use of this storytelling device; maybe the author did not see the need to write a wedding ceremony for such minor characters, at the same time, the reader had to go through less stuff to get to the more important Red Wedding scene.

That is what sets it apart from The Lord of the Rings.  Especially with The Two Towers.  Part 1 was all about Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli.  Then Part 2 is Frodo and Sam's.  Both events happen simultaneously but you have to read them separately.  That's why it takes me longer to finish LOTR than ASOIAF.  Eh.  I love both and both have awesome screen adaptations.

I'm almost done with this book and I'm planning on taking a break from the series.  I've read nothing else since early July and GRRM does take YEARS to follow up his books.  Season 3 will not be in a couple of months so I'm not missing anything.  Life of Pi by Yann Martel will have a movie adaptation coming out in a few months so I might read that next.

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It was inventory day today at work.  A shit-ton of bull shit went down and... I honestly don't even know why I stay.  Maybe because it is so hard to find jobs nowadays that I'm somewhat thankful that I still have this.  Eh, I don't know.

So while killing time doing some useless thing, my co-worker had this god-awful song on repeat.  I only like ONE Drake song.  I think his other songs are horrible.  He can't sing for shit.  As for Rihanna, she's good but not a great singer.  I actually like her as an actress.  So yeah, my co-worker had this on full blast and no amount of headphone volume could drown it out until I couldn't take it anymore.  This is an awful song.