I read "A Game of Thrones" over the last month. It's not my usual genre, and I don't know why I did it (though I may be one of the few not spoiled on any part of it already) but I did end up liking it and the setting!
The first half was the hardest and slowest for me. The first 8 are told from the perspective of 8 different characters (?). Beyond those characters and some memorable ones like "The Mountain Who Rides" I may have even got the names confused in my head (Joffery and Jaime, and others), but by halfway through I had memorized them, and backtracked a bit to understand the earlier chapters. After that I finished it in a few days.
So it was almost a DNF for me, but I admit the voice of each of the characters was the best part of it, particularly the perspective of Arya and Sansa... I think Arya might have been my favorite character along with her dancing instructor and Tyrion. And I would like to learn more of Tywin too, after Tyrion's build up of the character only for his silence to be the creepiest part!
Anyways, my list of books I want to read both increased and decreased by one, so I'm back where I started. But I don't think I'll have as hard of a time reading the second book now, once I decide to dedicate another weekend to it.