I plowed through all 1100 pages of this beast of a book in 3 days, and believe me when I tell you that it was worth the wait! Of course there was plenty of action and intrigue and all that, but I was most excited about having these characters back in my life and watching them do what they do best. Yes, there were some major shakeups, but Jon Snow is still honorable (and possibly Lawful Stupid), Dany is still obsessing about prophecy and trying to mother the world, and Tyrion is still... Tyrion. The character development in this entire series is fantastic, and this book was no exception. 
 I will say that this book is darker than the previous books in the series. I realize this sounds ridiculous because 1) the entire series is dark, and 2) ASOS featured a certain event that is pretty much the gold standard for over-the-top violence. This one felt different, though. Obviously lots of bad things happened to characters in the previous books, but they were usually the result of careful planning and scheming, and there was some sort of political objective to be gained. In this book, bad things happened to characters just because they have the misfortune of running into genuinely terrible (and crazy) people. The Reek/Ramsay Bolton storyline was extremely dark and difficult to read, but it did turn a character I thought was beyond redemption into someone vaguely sympathetic, so there's that. 
 It's not a flawless book, but A Dance with Dragons is exciting, has a lot of great character interactions, and successfully moves the story forward. I'm crossing my fingers that we won't have to wait another 6 years for the next book in the series, but if we do, let's hope it's as good as this one!