Instruct: Classify Amazon reviews into positive or negative sentiment
Query: I was surprised

I was surprised at how the book held my interest. Although I really enjoyed Kitchen Confidential, I somehow thought Bourdain's writing ability might not cross over to fiction. This isn't a mystery at all; it might be better to call it crime fiction. His writing is direct and understated, no hyperbole, no "creative writing" attempts. For instance when he describes sex he uses straightforward and understated rather than overdone language, and it is much more effective than more blowsy prose. I like his sentence structure and choice of words. I could see the action and the characters very clearly in my mind while reading the book and didn't want to put it down. Warning though: this is pretty violent stuff.