Dishing About A Dance With Dragons: Spoiler Thread

Per Kindle I am 17% in (I am trying to read it slowly and not miss anything) and I appreciate a place to say "squeeeeee!" and in this particular case, I can't belive GRRM made me feel bad for Theon.

@Mochabean: OMG! I didn't think Theon could ever be made sympathetic, but I guess if there's a way to twist it all sideways, Martin will.
I will likely read the book after I've gotten through my current short TBR stack (as opposed to the long one). Am seriously considering finally going digital for it.

I'm only on Book 3, but Theon, ugh.

But I will say that I am fascinated by how GRRM has made me care about characters from all sides of the war. It's pretty cool.

I finished the book last night. I enjoyed it, but right up until maybe the 80% point (I read it on my iPhone Kindle app, so I think in terms of percentages not pages), I was really expecting several threads to come together that ended up diverging again. E.g. I expected Dany and Tyrion to finally meet and am kinda annoyed they didn't. Also, I confess to being peeved over the Jon Snow cliffhanger, and Theon got the journey I wanted for Arya (i.e. remembering and reclaiming his/her true name and identity). Also, as a Sansa fan (I know that makes me part of a small minority, but I think she's going to be a force to be reckoned with soon), I was sorry that the promise I saw in one review that we'd still see most all the major characters from A Feast For Crows at some point didn't include her.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the book. I just wouldn't want EVERYTHING I read to be this full of cliffhangers and defied genre expectations. Also, with so many POV characters and plot arcs, there's only room for so much arc per character, and GRRM isn't writing The Tale of Tyrion and the Stark Girls and, oh yeah, Dany and Her Dragons, just because those are the parts that most interest ME.

Well I am FINALLY done. Wow. Love how GRRM continues to play with fantasy tropes -- in some cases taking them to their realistic conclusion (Quentyn Martell's doomed effort to get the girl and the dragons) and in some cases following them (Dany wandering in the grass desert, losing everything to gain enlightenment). Susanna, I missed some of the same things you did, along with Zombie Catlyn, but I was more satisfied with Arya's story in this installment. And as I said before, I can't beleive GRRM made me feel sorry for Theon, but he did, the bastard.

Finally Jon Snow realizes that Ygritte was right all along. But these books have a lot in common with soap operas-- no one is really dead unless you see their corpse, and even THEN, maybe not (Mance Rayder)-- so I refuse to believe that Jon Snow won't be with us in the next book. (sticking fingers in my ears and saying nonononononono to anyone who disagrees). Final question--does ADWD shed any more light on the mystery of Jon's parentage? One option seems to have been eliminated, given Jon Connington's POV memories. I'm sticking with the Rhaeger/Lyanna theory.