Oh lord. A Game of Thrones is great.
I think I know what put me off the first time, and it's a combination of two things. 1) An odd and somewhat creepy focus on sexual behavior with young characters. Viserys running his hands over Dany's body - she's 13 - and pinching her nipple, and then the talk of perfuming her genitals. It's just weird. I don't need that with my 13 year old character, thanks. I know there's worse coming, but that was one of the reasons I got turned off prior to watching the show. 2) An overwhelming amount of ASOIAF-specific terminology. Fantasy that frontloads the first few chapters with all that terminology really makes it hard for me to get into the story, and I remember having an issue with that during Bran and Catelyn's first chapter, trying to visualize all these words that I don't really have any basis for.
Having seen the show, it really made opening that book for the umpteenth time way easier, and reading the early chapters has for the first time not been exhausting.
I am excited to see where this takes me and I hope to finish it this weekend.