I did not enjoy reading "Clash of Kings" because the storyline revolves mostly on the war between the Starks and the Lannisters which can get really boring really fast and took my motivation to pick that book up faster than I could say the word direwolf. The viewpoint changes in the book switched between Cersei, Tyrion and Catelyn for the most part, only offering Sansa's, Arya's or Daenerys's storyline(s) in the last 300 pages.
The same basic, war focussed plot caused me to roughly skim the chapters at best and towards the end resulted in me skipping any of Cersei's, Tyrion's, Catelyn's and Theon's chapters so I could finish the book faster.
Even though the plot was very dry, I am giving the book the rating it has received for developing the characters (I did end up reading about) in a very relatable sense, even though - again - the war focussed plot distracted from that pretty quickly.
I do hope that all this "setting the scene" stuff that has been happening in "Clash of Kings" will have been worth it for the sake of "Storm of Swords" (the third book in the series), because in case that won't be the case I see myself forced to put the series aside as a whole which I do not really want to do because I would like to watch the TV show while knowing what happens and also because George R. R. Martin is one of the greatest masters of his subject, Medieval Fantasy.

3/5 stars for character development