Instruct: Classify Amazon reviews into positive or negative sentiment
Query: disappointing after 16 Pleasures

I'm about two-thirds of the way through The Fall of a Sparrow and really I am having to force myself to keep going. The characters do not feel real- the author seems to be trying too hard -doesn't seem like he really had the story in him. Too contrived. And why no discussion of why the mother left her children? It is unbelievable that the girls just shrug their shoulders about it and happily go on. I found the endless identification (it wasn't really description) if what the characters were eating, drinking or picking in the garden boring. So many things seem to have been put in the book just so we'd know how "cool" Woody (Hellenga?) is: He plays the blues, is a gourmet cook, is irresistable to women, is hip about the fact that his daughter is having an affair with an older married man, listens to Garrison Keillor, had hot sex with his wife every Sunday morning, the list goes on and on. Spare me.