Negative Positive
Title: Manipulative
Review: This author really knows how to stack the deck. He has also created a main character who is pretty despicable yet always seeking the reader's approval--kind of pathetic. Anyway, everyone just love love loves this book, so I decided to read it and was VERY disappointed. Hosseini is not a good writer; he perpetually tries too hard. The more gruesome plot points are calculated to make the reader feel oh-so-outraged and superior, but paradoxically are also rather prurient. The villain is a caricature and there is no plausible explanation for his sadism. I want high quality writing out of a book. In my opinion, this book failed on that score. There is some interesting information about Afghanistan and Kabul, but that was an incidental positive in the mostly negative experience of reading the book.
Is the review positive or negative? 