I do love these characters, but for the first time in the series, I felt like there was some unwieldy and sometimes unnecessary new characters/plotlines. Perhaps since the original Book 4 had to be split into this and the next - but still, there were chapters (the Iron Men/Greyjoys) that moved slowly and didn't hold much interest in me at all. I missed many of the characters that were cut to save for the next book.

That said, the book was still great, and the last few chapters were really building in momentum.