This is probably the longest book I've ever taken to finish. In the history of ever. 
 I'm telling you. This. Was. A. Struggle. 
 George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire is probably one of the most successful series of all time. I would say it's 60% to 70% due to the TV Show. 
 Now, now, hold it there. The story is really quite good. That's why I gave it a 3-star rating. Also, I know I may have enjoyed it less because I've watched the show and, so far, the book and show are running in parallel. So maybe - I don't really think so but - maybe I felt like I'm watching a rerun. 
 But still... 
 What I came to discover is that Martin's not only good at killing off his characters... but also at killing off readers. I tell you, man, by the second half of the book, I was struggling to breathe. 
 No, no. No, not because the story was so captivating. But because the man just wouldn't shut up with his boring descriptive style and the lists of useless names that add ZERO value to plotline/reader experience/emotional attachment! He just loves his fillers. Because how else would you be a badass author with a 969-page book (literally). 
 I actually found myself taking deep breaths every so often - like I've been diving under water - then stumbling over the words in such a frustrated and urgent manner, needing certain parts to end, like desperately! 
 Most Suffocating Chapters Off the Top of My Mind ATM: 
 Chapter Davos during the King's Landing river battle. More than half of the chapter's bullshit description of how the ships were lined up, the name of every single ship in the fleet, its captain, and the house that owns it. Then, every single ship in order as they exploded/caught fire/got wrecked. Etc. 
 Also this was probably the longest battle I've ever read. And quite uselessly, really. It took up like 5 chapters. I mean, for heaven's sake, I love epic fantasy, I love battle scenes, I love description with a passion - TOLKIEN IS MY FAVORITE AUTHOR - but Martin really took it too far. The man does have a gift for good description, but sparingly. And I mean, really sparingly. Like a paragraph per chapter maximum? But anyone who takes 5 chapters to describe a battle is just filling pages. 
 Chapter Sansa after the Battle of King's Landing, when the Tyrells are meeting the King. Tell me, Martin, what purpose does 10 pages of the following serve in your plotline: naming attendants with their houses and what they're wearing - shit you not; naming knighted warriors and how they look - shit you not, again - with their new titles, their houses, and their new estates; then naming all captives, also titles and houses and crap involved, then every single captive's complaint to Joffery... 
 And then, you discover the whole point of the chapter is for Joffrey to do a show of breaking his engagement with Sansa, to marry Margery. 
 I get it, I get it. I repeat, I love description that sucks me into a story and really makes me feel like I'm there. But I failed to get attached here in these chapters - and these are only 2 of so freaking many - because I felt not bored but suffocated. Seriously, man. 
 Now, to what I enjoyed and why I gave this book 3 stars: 
 I like the Stark kids and, having watched the show first, I'm immensely enjoying how 3 dimensional they are. Their bads and goods and innocence and naivety make sense because you know their respective ages, and that does a lot to add to my understanding of why they did what they did at any given point. 
 I haven't got quite attached to Dany, but I also see how she's progressing and learning, and I see how this little girl has had such a huge responsibility shoved onto her and brainwashed into her since quite an early age, and this is starting to soften me to her. 
 The final, and most important, part of the story that I loved was the magic element - and I bet most people haven't noticed it, and I'm not talking about the obvious "magical" elements, like spells and shape-shifters and stuff. I mean the link that brings them all together. 
 Dragons are one of my all time favorite mythical creatures in books. They are never "just" mythical animals. They're always bearers of magic, even the source of it. They are made of magic, and many stories say magic goes extinct without them. This is a constant in most dragon lore and myth. 
 In ASoIaF, Dragons have gone extinct ages ago, and people in Westeros don't even believe in magic and brush it off as a myth... because there is no magic in their day. However, we see throughout that magic still does exist. I mean, wargs and maegis and wildfire and visions. And, you know, the undead. But what many might have failed to notice is how most of the things started happening - or at least accelerated - around the time the dragons hatched again. 
 Pyromancers' spells for making wildfire start working exceptionally fast - and they ask Tyrion if, to his knowledge, there are any dragons about, as their elders used to say dragons are the power behind their spells. The Stark kids start to receive their "wolf dreams" again; Bran gets so powerful so fast that he could contact Jon in a dream. Ned even talks to Arya in the godswood in Harrenhal at one point. Even Qorin Halfhand tells the Brothers that magic is back. And to me, this sub-surface link, while insignificant to most, makes it that much real to me. 
 So there you go: my review. I don't think I'll be reading the 3rd book right away - I mean to breathe through 2-3 books before, at least.