You are considering whether to buy a product. You look at the reviews. Would the following review decrease or increase the chances of you buying the product?
Review title: Falls Flat
Product review: Sorry, I have to be the dissenting voice here. It is an extremely rare occurence that I give up on a book and I am dangerously close to putting Empire Falls back on my roommate's book shelf. There may be a good story somewhere in the next 300 pages, but it'd really have to be something spectacular to justify plodding through the vapid writing.Russo likes to hit the reader over the head, tell you instead of show you, and repeat the obvious three and four times. Perhaps a real character will develop by the second half of the book, but thus far I am looking at a cast of caricatures painted with broad strokes, engaged in conversations that sound nothing like natural human dialogue.I have a feeling that Empire Falls' popular acclaim is largely attributable to its willingness to tackle a difficult issue of concern to many in this country -- school violence. It will not survive as a classic, and, less importantly, it will not survive as the book I read on the subway for the rest of the week.
