(Or, "Lauren is a day late and a dollar short on a world-wide phenomena, but not for the first time.")
So, I guess you've all been wondering what I've been up to? Well, my friends, the short answer is This. The long answer is, "So help me, if you spoil this series I will find you and I will kill you, because I have little to no faith in Nerd Culture. You're all horrible. Shut your mouths and go breathe on some other poor girl."
There now. In my defense - not that I need one - when this book was published I was in the 3rd grade, and this isn't the sort of book you would just hand over to a 9 year old girl to read. Further more, when the series was released on HBO how was I supposed to know it was actually going to be good, despite the fact that I also do not have HBO. Further-further more, the series is tremendous and the truth of the matter is I was always kind of saving it for when I would have a long stretch of "too much time." Like, say I would find myself bedridden. Realistically, I've always assumed that if I ever found myself pregnant, I would be the kind of pregnant woman - like this one cousin I have - who spent her last trimester in bed due to complications. That's the perfect amount of time to spend on reading gargantuan fantasy novels! Then suddenly, I realized I shouldn't bank on any of these things. For one thing, waiting until early motherhood is possibly the worst time to read big books. Because you will never read another book again. I have it on pretty good authority. And, well, there really isn't any time like the present after-all. So I did it anyway.
What is there to say about this book that hasn't already been said? Answer: nothing. I'm just going to be agreeing with a bunch of people no matter what side they're on.
But I did enjoy it. A lot. I would be lying if I said I hadn't had make-out dreams with dear old Jon Snow (Yes, I know he's 14. Cut me some slack though. Even at 14, he's more of a man than most of you - so, suck it!) I realized that all of my girl friends and I are Arya Stark in our own way, and that's a good way to be. No one likes Sansa. I wanted very badly not to hate Sansa, but seriously she made it impossible at times, though I do pity her tremendously and sympathize with her. I can see there will (hopefully) be a lot of character growth where she is concerned. I dare say, Sansa may be the only character Martin wrote (so far as I can tell) that you have conflicted feelings about. He's really good at manipulating how you'll feel about his characters. If he wants you to hate someone, you will damn well hate them. No excuses. You will be tempted to throw the book or remote or whatever nearby object in disgust because of them. But the characters are complicated - in fact there are a lot of aspects of this series that'sthat's a really beautiful thing. I'm really happy to see a series like this become this popular. It's got something for everyone, and that's really neat. Now I have to get my hands on the TV show, maybe. Yeah, you guys haven't heard the last from this series.
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