Here is a review left by a customer on a product. Would you say he was satisfied or dissatisfied?
Title: Pretentious and Manipulative
Review: Before anyone sends me nasty comments, I will preface by saying I do not dislike this book because I "missed the point." The author makes it patently impossible to miss his point by laboriously repeating it over and over for hundreds of pages. I applaud Martel for attempting something bigger than the usual drivel that is published and delving into symbol and allegory, but his attempt seemed heavy-handed to me. From the beginning author's note with its red-herring promise of a story to "make you believe in God" to its warm-fuzzy insistence that all religion is story and all story is metaphor to its flights of absurdist fantasy I felt I was being manipulated by a fake story to get me to some kind of "point." And, lo and behold, when I got to the end, I found I was right. Apparently, many people find this book not just good but great; however, I am firmly in the minority that felt this was more a clunky attempt at sleight-of-hand than a gripping novel.
