Review: "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin

From Goodreads:  ...A Clash of Kings transports us into a magnificent, forgotten land of revelry and revenge, wizardry and wartime. It is a tale in which maidens cavort with madmen, brother plots against brother, and the dead rise to walk in the night. Here a princess masquerades as an orphan boy; a knight of the mind prepares a poison for a treacherous sorceress; and wild men descend from the Mountains of the Moon to ravage the countryside.

Against a backdrop of incest and fratricide, alchemy and murder, the price of glory may be measured in blood. And the spoils of victory may just go to the men and women possessed of the coldest steel...and the coldest hearts. For when rulers clash, all of the land feels the tremors.

Audacious, inventive, brilliantly imagined, A Clash of Kings is a novel of dazzling beauty and boundless enchantment—a tale of pure excitement you will never forget.
My Thoughts:  I finished A Game of Thrones over the summer and finally picked up A Clash of Kings because I was missing the characters so much!  It was nice to pick it up and see a bunch of familiar faces.

The story is told through the eyes of Davos, Theon Greyjoy, Tyrion Lannister, Arya Stark, Catelyn Stark, Daenarys Targaryen and Jon Snow.  Tyrion seemed to be the main focus of this book and boy, was he busy!  I loved to seem him get his sister all riled up and it was pretty awesome when he gave Joffrey a beat down.  I liked Tyrion from the first book but I wavered in this book between liking and disliking him.  I think the dislike comes purely from the fact that he is a Lannister and those people can't be trusted.  Arya and Jon Snow factored pretty heavily into this story as well but whenever I read about them I can't help but feel anxious.  I keep thinking something big is going to happen to them and I can't wait to see what it is!

I must say that I wasn't super excited by some of the characters in this book.  We get to know more about Theon Greyjoy in this book and I was not impressed.  He is an arrogant jerk who isn't as smart as he thinks he is.  I also didn't care much for Davos.  I don't remember him from the first book and I didn't feel like I really got to know him in this book.  He was mainly used to allow the reader to see what kind of shenanigans Stannis Baratheon was up to.  And my last complaint is about Dani.  I loved her sections in the first book but my goodness, she was boring in this one.  I got tired of reading about her wandering through the desert with her ragtag bunch of Dothraki.

While I didn't love A Clash of Kings as much as A Game of Thrones, it was still a really good book and I am very eager to read the third book in the series now.  4 stars.