Hey guys! So today I am sans Leslie,
no Leslie here today, because I have a
book review for you about Game of
Thrones by George R. R. Martin. This hunk is
807 pages not including the appendix,
which I did read as well. It is, more or
less, if you don't know an epic fantasy
series that takes place in the land of
Westeros. There are seven kingdoms. You
know, there's the normal knights, wizards,
and kings, queens. There is that normal
stuff and then there is the sort of
George R. R. Martin thing that he adds on.
The thing about Westeros that makes it
different from a lot of other
middle-age settings is that summers and
winters there can be years long. So, when
you start this book the, the whole
area has been in summer for I think it's
about 10 years and when they have
winters, winters are horrible. They're
years long. People die because they run
out of food. There is feet and feet of
snow and a lot of the older characters
sort of chastise the younger characters
by saying, oh you know nothing. You don't
know winter. You haven't experienced winter.
You're a summer child. That's sort of the
huge difference and the overall looming
thing is that winter is coming.
That also happens to be the words of the
House Stark which is one of the main
houses in here and you follow a lot of
different characters, but you follow a
lot of characters from the Stark house.
There's also the Lannister house. They're
obsessed with money.
There's a lot of other minor characters.
This book has a lot of characters and it
helped because I have seen the TV show
so I kind of already had pictures in my
head of a lot of these characters and have
sort of established who people are.
The main difference is that, in the TV show,
they aged some of the characters up
because certain characters in the book
are only 13 or 14 years old and they're
doing things that only grownups can do
on television so they have to age the
characters up to make it appropriate.
I have these pictures of Jon Snow
and Daenerys Targaryen and they're in
the show they're probably like mid-
late teens, early twenties. I think that's
like kind of what they're trying to go
for in their age group. In the book they're
14 years old! 13 or 14 years old.
The book itself, the print is extremely
tiny so it took me over a month to read
this, but it is written extremely
well. Like, there is, there's really great
prose in this book. I had no issue with
how the story flowed and how it was told.
As I said before, you see things from
many different characters' points of view
and you often go back to them after a
couple chapters. So if something shocking
happens you have to wait a little bit
before you can get back to it, which sort
of heightens the anticipation of: oh my
god what just happened? All the
characters are super interconnected.
George R. R. Martin has such a history for
these characters. It's amazing how much
backstory he has and you get a lot of that
backstory for reading the appendix
afterwards, which explains the different
major houses and sort of their lineage
and whatnot. In terms of favorite
characters, Arya but Arya is, I love
Arya even, you know, before I read the
books. I like Jon Snow too though he's
not, like, a big favorite. Sansa... hard to
like her in the first one because she's
so convinced about her love for this
Prince Joffrey who is a total butthead.
Eddard Stark, or Ned, who is the head of
House Stark is, he's so gallant and
he's so honorable and it's hard not to
like him but sometimes you're like: oh honey,
it's okay. Like, this isn't going to work
out for you. I know you want it to but
it's not going to because everybody else
is so corrupt. Tyrion Lannister, he's the
imp or half-man or dwarf, whatever you
want to call him. He is a really
interesting character because he's sort of
like the rejected one of the Lannisters
so he's got a lot of money but his
father doesn't love him and you get to be
inside his head a lot in here and he's,
he's an extremely cunning character.
You get to sort of see his mind work his
magic in this book even more so than you
might get from a TV show and that's
great. You also see points from this book
that you didn't see in the TV show.
There's certain, like, fights that are
extended. There's exchanges between
characters that you never saw, characters
you never met who you're kind of like: he
would've been cool to have the
show. And then there's the characters that
you just love to hate and that's kind of,
that's kind of the point of them like
Prince Joffrey. Daenerys, I kind of have a
love-hate relationship with her.
Sometimes she's cool and sometimes she...
ugh, she annoys me too. You can get
yourself to read 807 pages 'cause some
people just, no, doesn't do it for them
but, I don't know, I like a challenge. I'm
already, I've already started Clash of
Kings which is the second book. But if you
really like epic fantasy series and you
like detailed characters where they're
all intertwined. Grand stories and lots
of fighting and sometimes slightly
shocking stuff then this, this is a good
book to challenge you and it's a good
book to read.
There are so many underlying story lines
in this book that even start right from
the beginning and you know things that
the characters don't even know and
you're like: why don't, why don't you see
this? Why don't you see this? but they
don't see it and you know and *sigh* of course
I can't say too much 'cause I don't
give anything away. Although, probably a
lot of people have been spoiled because
of the TV show. Overall, I would give it a
4 out of 5 stars.
It's a strong book but there are points
in it where you're kind of like: okay
this is really, really weird or you feel
like they're spending way too much time
on a character and you're kinda like: you know
what I want to move on. I want to hear
something more interesting than a couple
people bantering back and forth. Although
I'm sure that banter is extremely
important later on you just don't know
it at the time. I also want to address
the comparison that sometimes happens
between Game of Thrones and Lord of the
Rings. They are completely different. The
only thing they have in common is the
middle-age sort of setting that does
have knights and kings and battles and whatnot.
The Lord of the Rings was written a long
time ago and they're actually a little
bit difficult to get through.
I've read them so I know. Game of Thrones
is a lot easier to get through. It's also
much more interesting, I think. There's
much more detail in the sense of the
characters and their interactions with
each other while Lord of the Rings is
extremely detailed in terms of like... the
setting. Game of Thrones is much more
brutal. This is like a more modern
fantasy novel that I think is much more
approachable for everyone
whereas Lord of the Rings is sort of
for like those hardcore people who really
want to challenge themselves and say
they've read it. Thank you guys very
much for watching. If you have read this
book and, you know, want to leave some of
your thoughts below, maybe ask me a
couple questions about, ya know,
certain things I didn't address, feel
free. And of course subscribe if you like
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Bye!
