ONTD Book Club discussion

This month the ONTD Book Club has picked A Game of Thrones to read! That means over the next month (mod note: 700 pages?! REALLY?! Geez!) we'll be reading and discussing - and being snarky and mean about - A Game of Thrones. Pick up your copies today, download them, steal them, whatever. Then let's discuss!

Luckily I have an 8 hour car ride today so I should be able to finish the book I'm reading now and start on this. I'll need all the time I can get!

How is everyone doing? I sadly only started yesterday and I'm 3% in (it's so looong).

Megan wrote: "How is everyone doing? I sadly only started yesterday and I'm 3% in (it's so looong)."

It's a lot more interesting than I remember it being when I tried to read it years and years ago. I'm only about thirty pages in, though. Time will tell.

I started it last night and I'm about a hundred pages in. I'm liking it more than I thought I would since it's totally not my normal genre and I don't know if I would've actually read it without this as motivation. I've only been wanting to read it because of the hype and so far I'm glad it won the poll.

Whoops, I should really start on this for real! I think it'll snowball pretty quickly and I should be able to finish it on time. I keep putting it off day after day and the first season is nearly done!

I'm 9% in on my Kindle and all I have really noticed so far is that Martin is a good story teller, it's just that his prose itself - his writing style - is basic. Don't get me wrong, the story is good, but his writing itself isn't amaaaaazing.

Anyone else have any thoughts so far?

I think I'm going to have to drop out of this month. I got WAY too busy at work and then I took on editing/proofing my boyfriend's 250 page manuscript on top of it all. Sorry guys, there is no way I'm finishing this book on time.

Jenna wrote: "I think I'm going to have to drop out of this month. I got WAY too busy at work and then I took on editing/proofing my boyfriend's 250 page manuscript on top of it all. Sorry guys, there is no way..."

Don't sweat it! I have my own manuscript that I need to edit and proofread but that's going to take awhile simply because I'm lazy.

I think that when it comes to world building, the less complex the language is, the better. There's so much going on in fantasy that you don't want readers to get bogged down in the prose - which is not to say that it can't be done beautifully (ex: Lord of the Rings).

Katie wrote: "I think that when it comes to world building, the less complex the language is, the better. There's so much going on in fantasy that you don't want readers to get bogged down in the prose - which i..."

Yeah, but I like some florid writing to go with my world building, even though in one novel I just read - Embassytown - he needed to seriously lay off the big words he kept shunting in for no reason at all. He used words applicable to specific events in the 16th century for things happening hundreds if not THOUSANDS of years in the future on a planet that treats Earth as a legend.

But I dunno, I think I prefer my prose not as stark and spartan as this. But yeah, it's good stuff, just really, REALLY long.

I thought I would get annoyed with the shifting POVs, but I really enjoy the character development that it allows. Thoughts?

Sarah wrote: "I thought I would get annoyed with the shifting POVs, but I really enjoy the character development that it allows. Thoughts?"

I feel the same way. I usually hate so many different points of view, but it's actually helping me keep all the different names and families straight.

Yeeeah, I don't think I'm going to be able to finish. I'm slogging through a boring part right now and I'm only 15% in. That's the equivalent of like page 100 and it's taken me two weeks to get this far, LOL.

Megan wrote: "Yeeeah, I don't think I'm going to be able to finish. I'm slogging through a boring part right now and I'm only 15% in. That's the equivalent of like page 100 and it's taken me two weeks to get t..."

What do you consider boring about it?

Katie wrote: "Megan wrote: "Yeeeah, I don't think I'm going to be able to finish. I'm slogging through a boring part right now and I'm only 15% in. That's the equivalent of like page 100 and it's taken me two ..."

They're riding, they're talking, they're riding, now other people are riding, they're talking...

It's just been a dull 20 pages or so.

Megan wrote: "They're riding, they're talking, they're riding, now other people are riding, they're talking..."

I'm about 250 pages in and I feel like that's pretty much all I'm reading about, too. I'm still determined to finish, though!

I don't think I'll be making it either. The switching POVs is killing me. Usually I don't mind it in books, but unfortunately in this book it's really preventing me from getting into it.

Do you guys read a lot of adventure/fantasy novels or is this out of the norm for you? Many of them have a ton of horseback riding paragraphs, haha.

Katie wrote: "Do you guys read a lot of adventure/fantasy novels or is this out of the norm for you? Many of them have a ton of horseback riding paragraphs, haha."

I read a lot of fantasy, but I prefer things like The Ruins of Ambrai (quite possibly my fave fantasy book excluding LoTR and the such). Horses weren't really necessary for the plot, but occasionally used nonetheless. I've gotten back into a better part for GoT. Catelyn's POV sections for some reason don't lull me to sleep as much as say...Jon's or Ned's. Even Tyrion so far has been blah.

Katie wrote: "Do you guys read a lot of adventure/fantasy novels or is this out of the norm for you? Many of them have a ton of horseback riding paragraphs, haha."

Nope, totally not my normal genre, haha. That's why I was hoping to use this as motivation since I've been wanting to read it to make recommendations at my job and to see what all the hype is about. I know I never could've finished it on my own.

Megan wrote: "Catelyn's POV sections for some reason don't lull me to sleep as much as say...Jon's or Ned's. Even Tyrion so far has been blah."

Funny, I'm the opposite! I find myself dreading Catelyn's chapters and enjoying Jon's and Tyrion's a bit more.

Tayls wrote: "Katie wrote: "Do you guys read a lot of adventure/fantasy novels or is this out of the norm for you? Many of them have a ton of horseback riding paragraphs, haha."

Nope, totally not my normal ge..."

I used to be big on fantasy (bigger on science fiction, though - still am), but I've been worn out on it over the years. I think the Black Jewels trilogy and then some bad experiences with RPing it (god, it attracts the worst bitches excuse my French in all of RPing, which is the reason I quit it) really drove me away from fantasy and towards the Oprah Book Club, which by the way I am a big fan of. That and Jennifer Crusie and Sophie Kinsella and ADULT PNR.

I'm trying! Don't fault me for that.

I'm enjoying the shifting POVs, actually. At first I was having a hard time keeping track of who was who, but I have the names down now. And the shifting helps when one person's story isn't as interesting, lol. I enjoy Catelyn's chapters the most, I think.

Catelyn is a badass. But yeah, I'm 22% in still. It's slow going.

I do like the shifts when it gets boring, but hate them when it gets interesting! I'm liking Tyrion's the most right now.

I think this is one of the few instances in which shifting POVs is totally okay with me. More often than not I tend to get detached from the characters when there are so many perspectives, but since the books are so massive it tends to work better here.

I'm 16% in. There is no way I'm finishing this before June ends!

I got to 26% today, but yeah, it's still slow going.

Tayls wrote: "I do like the shifts when it gets boring, but hate them when it gets interesting! I'm liking Tyrion's the most right now."

I'm about 57% of the way through, and Tyrion's part just got super interesting but then it switched POVs. SIGH. But actually, I'm enjoying most of the POVs right now.

I just finished! :) While I agree that it started off slowly, I thought it really picked up around a third of the way through. It almost picked up too much! There was so much going on in the last third or so of the book. It was excellent. If I wasn't determined to reread Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows before the movie comes out, I would start reading the second book now.

So how many people actually finished? It's the 29th and I'm only 34% in, LOL.

I finished and I'm so glad I did. I don't plan on reading the next ones any time soon. I just feel like it never really picked up or came together. I'm glad it's over with, to be honest.

What did you feel about all the squicky romances - 13 year olds having sex, incest, more incest, lots more incest, sex in public, etc?

Also, I have a feeling that in the books at least - not the show so much - that the average lifespan must be like...30 or something, or even less.

That's one of my biggest gripes about it. I thought it was all really unnecessary. I'm not a prude by any means, but I didn't think it added much to the story. I got it, brothers and sisters have sex, older men and 13 year old girls have sex, lots of women get raped, and there are lots of whores... it didn't need to be described in detail of every single chapter, especially Daenerys'. It just all made the reading very unpleasant for me. I know it isn't supposed to be a warm and fluffy book, but it was just depressing and wasn't enjoyable.

It was like for the first part of the book (at least at the point where I'm at) all Daenerys does is look innocent and sweet and get pseudo-raped by her husband. And she's 13 and forced into this by her brother.

Her whole storyline confused me and creeped me out. It got to the point where I'd see her name on the next chapter and put the book away for later. I also got tired of her beautiful fair, silver-haired royal family and the "copper-skinned, almond-shaped eyed" savages. It felt like none of them were ever mentioned without a full physical description. Blah.

Ned is also beginning to get on my nerves because he seems so oblivious to the crap going on around him and doesn't care because he just sees it as his duty to do his job. Yeah, he's trying to investigate things, but when he actually sees something wrong and something damaging, he just stands there. Bran is boring to me, and Jon isn't much better (although he whines a lot which does spice things up). IDG why Jon was even raised so closely as a bastard to the rest of his family. Catelyn obviously hated him (for some reason). He created an attachment to them and it was obvious he could never act on it.

There is still something about the way Martin writes that irks me, but I can't place it. It's like he glosses over things but goes over so much stuff that isn't even worthwhile.

I liked Bran, but I have a soft spot for children. I liked Arya, too, but not Sansa. I really felt sad for Jon and I liked his chapters because it got away from everyone else.
The writing style irks me, too. It's like the description of the moon, the ground, and everyone's clothing could take up 3 pages, and then in a single paragraph a night's worth of action takes place. There were also some specific lines that stood out to me as not fitting in with the rest of them... I'm not sure if they were meant to be little jokes or breaks, but it was a bit choppy.

I think the books could be half the length if he took out the stuff that has no purpose being in the book. I admit I haven't been driven to read it (haven't even picked up my Kindle today honestly, but I did start my book blog - random) so I can't honestly say that it's my favorite book of all time.