Jay Targaryen's Blog

The Dragon Reborn (Book 3) is a good entry in The Wheel of Time series. It was a slower-paced book focusing on character development and world-building but it ends with a jaw-dropping finale. It was a risky move for Robert Jordan to spend almost an entire book away from the main protagonist (Rand) but he executed it wonderfully. Robert Jordan’s prose also went to another level in this book. There were so many beautiful passages throughout the book, especially near the end. The character development and world-building continues to be excellent. This almost feels like the ending to a trilogy but it definitely concludes the first act of this massive series and sets up for some exciting storylines. My last review was stupendously long so I’ll try to keep this one short. This review will have light spoilers and will be covered in 4 sections. Characters, Plot, Setting/World-Building, & Pacing. Image: Egwene al'Vere. [Characters]: Rand takes a backseat in this book an...

The Great Hunt (Book 2) is an exhilarating sequel in The Wheel of Time series. There is much more action, shocking reveals, and a faster pace in this 2nd book. The magic system is explained more in-depth, the world-building continues to be fantastic, and the scope expands greatly in terms of the POV chapters. The last quarter of this book was amazing, though I was slightly disappointed with the ending battle but I’ll get into that in the Plot section. Normally my reviews only have light spoilers from plot points in the beginning of a book, but It’s hard to talk about some of the character arcs and the best moments of this book without spoilers because a lot of those moments happen after a couple of surprising reveals. So for the sake of this review, it will contain HEAVY SPOILERS for the entire book. This review will cover 4 sections. Characters, Plot, Setting/World-Building, and Pacing. Image: Lord Captain Geofram Bornhald. [Characters]: The cha...

The Eye of the World (Book 1) is a thrilling and adventurous book filled with suspenseful moments, intriguing mysteries, phenomenal world-building/history, and an interesting magic system. I really enjoyed this book much more than I expected to. This review has light spoilers and will be covered in 5 sections. Characters, Plot, Setting/World-Building, Pacing, & Prose/Readability. [Characters]: The main POV character in this book is Rand al’Thor but there’s a handful of chapters from other POV’s around the halfway point (Perrin and Nynaeve). Rand is a very relatable and likeable character. It’s implied that he is the chosen one and there are a lot of important events that revolve around him, but he’s never portrayed as a flawless or perfect protagonist (aka Gary Stu/Mary Sue). He does a lot of dumb things, he has poor self-awareness and is perhaps the worst secret keeper in the history of the fantasy genre, but making those mistakes and being so...

A Dance with Dragons (Book 5) bounces back from the slight decline in quality of A Feast for Crows (Book 4) to deliver a riveting book filled with great adventures, twists, betrayals and tons of shocking moments. It was really fun reading a book with all my favorite characters being the main focus at the same time, with some great new additions to the story as well. The world-building and the character development continue to be outstanding. This review will be spoiler-free (although I will lightly cover some of the events in the book) and it will consist of 4 parts. Characters, Plot, Setting/World-Building, & Pacing. [Characters]: I was already going to enjoy the character aspects of this book either way, simply because all my favorite characters were packed together in this gigantic tome of a book, but the character development continues to be excellent (as it has been for the entire series). Jon and Daenerys continue to grow as leaders and...

A Feast for Crows (Book 4) feels very different from the first 3 books in the A Song of Ice & Fire series. Imagine if any book you read removed 3 of the most popular and main characters out of the book (Jon, Tyrion, & Daenerys) and made the most hated character in the story now the focus of the book (Cersei). If any other author did that for their book, it would fail and be a disaster. But…..George R.R. Martin somehow makes it work. This book has much less action and shocking twists but focuses more on the character development and world-building. The chapter structure is also different from the other 3 books because instead of having the normal 1 POV character telling a story in a certain location (e.g. Catelyn in the Riverlands), some of the locations follow several one-off POV characters (e.g. Arianne, Areo, & Arys in Dorne). This review will be non-spoilers and will be covered in 4 sections. Characters, Plot, Setting/World-Buildin...

A Storm of Swords (Book 3) is the best book in the A Song of Ice & Fire series so far. By a long shot. This book was just non-stop action and intrigue. There were shocking twists after twists after twists and many revelations that I didn't see coming. Not to mention, there were plenty of deaths. With all the action and battles and shocking events, I was scared that George R.R. Martin was just going to sneak out of answering all the lingering questions that were posed in Books 1 & 2 ('A Game of Thrones' & 'A Clash of Kings' respectively), but I was pleasantly surprised to find out a lot of answers, especially for the main mysteries that were posed all the way back in Book 1. This review has no spoilers but it will lightly cover some of the events in this book. It will be comprised of 4 brief sections. Characters, Plot, Setting/World-Building & Pacing. [Characters]: All of the POV characters have their best arcs ...

A Clash of Kings (Book 2) expands upon Book 1 (A Game of Thrones ) and kicks the plot into high gear since a bulk of the setup and introductions have already been covered in the 1st book. We get a couple of new POV characters, we visit new places and deal with intriguing politics while concluding with an epic battle. I'm changing up the review format a little bit from Book 1. I'm going to break down this review into 4 brief sections instead of 6. I got rid of the prose section because they're mostly helpful for Book 1's of a series and the rest of a book series usually has the same prose so I don't have much to say now for that section. I've also combined the setting & world-building sections together. This review will be non-spoilers and the 4 sections are Characters, Plot, Setting/World-Building, & Pacing. On to the review. [Characters]: The characters continue to be really compelling. They have new journeys which...