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: boring, pretentious, and profane
Product review: Having picked up its more famous sequel Bang the Drum Slowly on sale, I got The Southpaw so I would know the background. Now I have no desire to read the sequel. This is supposedly serious fiction for baseball fans, though most commentary will tell you it is not about baseball at all. Perhaps not, but there is a lot of boring baseball in it (the recounting of baseball games ought not to be boring, but it is here). The non-baseball stuff is at least interesting at times but otherwise has almost no redeeming value. Apparently "coming-of-age" should lead one to become more selfish and more cynical. And it is hard to conceive of a first-person narrator so lacking in self-awareness. We are supposed to like Henry Wiggen, but he is not likable. None of the characters in this book are likable. The Southpaw is boring, pretentious, and profane. I finished this because I started it, but I would not recommend this to anyone.
