Instruct: Classify Amazon reviews into positive or negative sentiment
Query: Complex read burdened by an awkward translation

This novel moves from the present to the past and back using a brutal double murder as the crime under consideration. The prose is very descriptive in terms of natural surroundings and densely written reminiscent of the style of Cold Mountain. At times, the story veers off into tangential musings about life, death and like cosmic topics; I did not think these meanderings added much to the story. It takes a tremendous amount of effort to read this book due to the complexity of the plot, the burden of what I believe is a mediocre translation and, ultimately, what to this U.S. reader was unfamiliarity with Swedish/ Norwegian and Lapp culture. I believe that the high praise and awards for this book must largely reflect the taste of readers who read it in its native tongue and understood cultural currents which, lacking prior background, I could not appreciate. If I were to sum it all up, I would subtitle my review as Lost in Translation.