Instruct: Classify Amazon reviews into positive or negative sentiment
Query: potentially fascinating story told in as boring a way as possible

This should have been impossible to put down. Instead, it was hard to motivate myself to read it. The author goes through dull recitals of fact instead of making any evident attempt to tie the facts together into a narrative. I pride myself on finishing books I start, but I make an exception here. I'll add that the maps are poor enough to be entirely unhelpful.