Game of Thrones: First impressions
If you've seen the set of instagram photos a few posts down you'll know I've been reading a Game of Thrones. I'm generally not into fantasy but I read a great series recently that's made me a little more open to the genre, so I thought I'd give it a go and see what all the hype is about. While I normally find 'hyped' books to be a bit of a disappointment (The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Twilight come to mind), I actually quite enjoyed this book and I'll definitely carry on reading the series.
- Spoilers below! -
That said, I do have a number of complaints, the most prominent of which would probably be how long it took me to get into the story because of endless, confusing waffle. It probably wouldn't be as much of an issue if you were into fantasy because I imagine the description would make more sense to you and be more interesting, but it just didn't engage me. There were so many characters and it took me a while to get my head around all of the different houses and their titles, and then their nicknames, their families, allies and enemies.
Another issue is the pretty blatant misogyny. I'm fine with a bit of sexual content but the women in the book have very little power at all - even the women in powerful ranks have their opinions pushed aside as they have 'soft hearts'. One of the main characters, Arya, says that she wants to be a soldier and doesn't want to be a pretty princess whose main ambition in life is to produce sons for her husband, yet she's told she has no choice. Now, I'm not saying that wanting to be a mother is a poor ambition in life - not at all - but I believe you should have the choice and options to do what you want in life, and I really feel Arya's frustration.
In a way I wish the book didn't have so many main characters because I don't think enough was resolved by the end, there were so many plots left up in the air. That's fine if you want to intrigue people enough to buy the next book, but I have a feeling the next book will have the same problem. The ending was actually pretty amazing though!
Even though I had issues, I still ended up being drawn into the story and I found myself really starting to care about a handful of characters. Overall, I think the author created quite an intriguing, if a little backward, world and I'm interested to know where he goes with the series.
- Spoilers below! -
That said, I do have a number of complaints, the most prominent of which would probably be how long it took me to get into the story because of endless, confusing waffle. It probably wouldn't be as much of an issue if you were into fantasy because I imagine the description would make more sense to you and be more interesting, but it just didn't engage me. There were so many characters and it took me a while to get my head around all of the different houses and their titles, and then their nicknames, their families, allies and enemies.
Another issue is the pretty blatant misogyny. I'm fine with a bit of sexual content but the women in the book have very little power at all - even the women in powerful ranks have their opinions pushed aside as they have 'soft hearts'. One of the main characters, Arya, says that she wants to be a soldier and doesn't want to be a pretty princess whose main ambition in life is to produce sons for her husband, yet she's told she has no choice. Now, I'm not saying that wanting to be a mother is a poor ambition in life - not at all - but I believe you should have the choice and options to do what you want in life, and I really feel Arya's frustration.
In a way I wish the book didn't have so many main characters because I don't think enough was resolved by the end, there were so many plots left up in the air. That's fine if you want to intrigue people enough to buy the next book, but I have a feeling the next book will have the same problem. The ending was actually pretty amazing though!
Even though I had issues, I still ended up being drawn into the story and I found myself really starting to care about a handful of characters. Overall, I think the author created quite an intriguing, if a little backward, world and I'm interested to know where he goes with the series.
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