I do hope she has a better one, than I do... (Dear God, how I want to just jump over this next year)
Anyways, if her post is of a book (and a TV series made out of it), I thought I would do that too.
And since I'm still not finished with Cloud Atlas (I will write a review as soon as I will be, tho), the only thing that's fresh and new Is the first book of the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series.
I know, I know, I talked about this series a lot, but the fact remains, I only finished the first book a few days ago.
Let me tell you the reason for this.
As you already know, I started off with listening to the audio book. I have to tell you guys, that listening to a freaking book can be really, really monotonous and boring - especially when the book starts off kinda boring.
I'm not telling you that the whole "A Game of Thrones" is boring - far from it, in fact.
But if you come to like some characters and detest others, having to read about these last one can be excruciating. The fact that -as I said - I was actually listening to an old man reciting it all, made it all the worse.
I know that making an audio book isn't simple at all, but hearing the same old guy doing different voices for different characters was a lot taxing on my nerves. He managed to put me in a trance where my head turned totally empty, and I even forgot that I was actually walking on the streets - and ended up surprised when I actually got where I wanted to go, and didn't even remember how I got there...
Now, let me get to the actual book part.
After my weird audio book experience, I put the book away for a while. I had better things to do than to read something that wasn't in the least interesting to me. It seemed that everything in the book was about strategies and politics - two topics that can actually put me to sleep.
But then, after a while I thought that I SHOULD finish it. After all, I did promise myself to read the books before the next series comes out on TV.
And although, I had my own war with it at first, at about the second third of it, the book actually turned into something interesting.
Now, since I already saw the first few seasons on TV, I actually knew what will happen soon. This didn't stop me for rooting for my favorite characters, and flinch away visibly when something bad happened - even tho I knew that it was going to happen.
This was actually weird. From this point on, I almost felt myself IN the story.
I was more than one person at this time - even tho this sounds a bit schizophrenic. I was the girl, who already knew what was going to happen (and who could only imagine the characters by the way they looked in the movies...). I was the girl who was reading the book (and trying to actually imagine everything BY MY TERMS, instead of thinking how the TV showed it). And, I was every single character portrayed in the book.
I actually came to like some of the characters that I hated in the movies, and kinda understood them. Probably because the books are a LOT more detailed about how they feel and actually think about certain things.
And even though I absolutely HATE the character of Joffrey, I DO kinda understand his reasoning behind what he tried to do.
At this point in time, it is actually Cersei I hate the most - probably because I managed to put behind me Lena Headey's portrayal of her character (she did a pretty good job, didn't she? She managed to kinda fool me in the movies).
I also kinda started to understand Sansa's character. In the movies, she was one of my least favorite persons, and to quote Joffrey: "You truly are a stupid girl, aren’t you? My mother says so." Yes, I do think that she is one of the stupidest characters in this story, but then I also realize that she was RAISED to be like that... she is a child, raised to be the weak little princess, and she is almost at her teen years, so it's understandable that she tries to act a lot more "adult" by doing stupid things.
As for the other characters, I would say that Jon is one of the biggest surprises compared to the movies. I wasn't at all interested in his character in those, but the book made him seem kinda interesting. (For some strange reason I also keep comparing him and his story to Dragon Age... the Night's Watch ARE kinda like the Grey Wardens, aren't they?)
For other characters it seemed mostly unchanged. Bran (although in the book he seems a lot more of a brat) is still a boring character in my eyes - even though I somehow have the feeling that he will be one of those "young prince" characters that go from being the poor kid to winning everything. Ah well, this I will have to see as I read the books. I wonder if my instincts are right in a couple of things...
Hmm... who else? Arya and Dany are still my favorite characters: I absolutely loved Dany's narration of the burning, and I adore Arya for being soooo clever. Arya is all the things her sister can never be. I think that out of the children she is the one that most resembles Eddard.
I hope she and Dany will both have a good ending. I don't know what I would do if one of them would be somehow killed. (Please don't ruin the future books for me with telling me anything about ANY characters!)
Well, ladies and gentlemen. I think this is pretty much it.
I can't wait to get started on the second book - which I will do, as soon as I finish Cloud Atlas, War of the Worlds and Casual Vacancy. I already started the first two, and I'm not about to miss out on something that Rowling wrote.
I'll be back with reviews for all of these, tho... so just check back in from now on, please.
