Finished it yesterday.
SPOILER SPACE
MORE SPOILER SPACE
MORE SPOILER SPACE
MORE SPOILER SPACE (is there a better way to do spoilers, btw?)
Anyway, here we go. Some thoughts:
I'd actually be more surprised if [redacted] stayed dead. There seems to be a pretty easy-ish way to bring him/her back in the next book. Probably the biggest game changer here, either way.
My only major complaint with ADWD is that it could have been trimmed down somewhat, particularly with regards to Mereen and The Wall. Even then, the Wall plot was actually fine, just a bit too padded. The Mereen parts though.... I dunno. Too much of nothing happened there until like, page 700, and then HOLYSHITAWESOMEAWESOMEAWESOMEYEAAAAAA, and then..... right before we get to the climax, the book ends. TWOW better open with a bang (I'm pretty sure it will too, I read somewhere that Martin's editors forced him to move the climax of ADWD to the next book because the page length was getting too long).
The War in the North was awesome. I totally missed the part with the pie until I read about it online
Bran's parts were quite interesting as well. I enjoyed the return to Jaime and Cersei's stories. Ser Robert Strong seems like a pretty interested development. Poor Kevan.
The reveal of [redacted] as the [redacted] came a bit out of left field for me, but I like how Tyrion responded to it. This could either be a really cool thing or a really meh thing, depending on how the next few books play out. Cautiously optimistic so far.
The writing, overall, was excellent. Hopefully the next one will come out soon. Maybe