A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

9/10

I read this one about three and a half months ago. I really liked it. The only thing keeping it from a 10 out of 10 book for me is a few too many over-the-top sexual descriptions that were unnecessary/uncomfortable and didn't add anything to the story. It's the one thing I was worried about when starting the book based on what I had heard about the tv show, and for a while there I was thinking there really wasn't much of it at all, but the more we got into the Daenerys storyline, the more the creepy sexual descriptions would creep in. Getting that out of the way, I really did enjoy this book. I thought it was great world-building with numerous characters each with their own separate quests or storylines. Ever since I was a kid when I was introduced to The Hobbit, I have loved fantasy books with maps that you can continuously reference throughout the story to see where each separate adventure is taking place. I was a little confused about where Daenerys's story was taking place because I couldn't find any of the places on the map, but I figured out (I think?) that she's on some land across a sea, but I'm not sure why there wasn't any map to show where she was. It was an enjoyable book to read regardless of which storyline was being covered for the particular chapter. I'm most curious about the mystery of what is happening up North beyond the wall and hope the next book will get further into what's going on there. The Tyrion character seems to be the most fun and interesting one for me as he's on the "bad guy" team but doesn't seem to be a bad guy like the rest of his family. The most boring storyline for me so far is with Bran, a youngster who gets paralyzed early in the story, but we'll see where that goes. I am intrigued by most all of the characters that seem really flawed in various ways which makes for interesting reading. I was surprised to see that this book was written in 1996. I never heard of it until the tv show came out and didn't realize the book was written so much earlier. Looking forward to getting to the second book which I hopefully will read at some point in 2026.