Instruct: Classify Amazon reviews into positive or negative sentiment
Query: Padded, ponderous, pretentious, preposterous pulp.

Straub seems to have reached the point where he or his publishers feel that every book MUST be big to be a bestseller. We are treated to lengthy descriptions of the frying of bacon and okra, serving no other point in the plot than to demonstrate that the protagonist's aunts are healthy eaters. You can almost sense him thinking, "Well, at least I'm filling pages!" The best scenes seem borrowed from MYSTERY, and nothing has the eerie resonance of his best work. A huge disappointment that never convinces for an instant. When I idly glanced at the next book in my stack (Graham Joyce's THE TOOTH FAIRY) and encountered economical, witty, sinewy prose, I knew I was never going to finish MR. X.