Instruct: Classify Amazon reviews into positive or negative sentiment
Query: over-written and self-conscious

This is ultimately a question of personal taste, but I found this novel appallingly over-written and self-conscious. Yes, she has a decent story in mind, but the writing itself is just too distractingly over-wrought. Metaphors and similes pile up at an alarming rate on every page and the story moves along, but it's not as good as it could have been, if Ciment had a better grasp of her own strengthes and weaknesses. Her memoir is better writing and truer in every sense.