Instruct: Classify a review into positive or negative sentiment.
Query: Nowhere near as good as Stones From the River

Ursula Hegi is a great writer and really knows how to tell a story. However, the problem with this book is that the characters, including the title character, are boring and I wasn't interested in any of them. The most intriguing character was Trudi (from Stones From the River) who was briefly mentioned somewhere in the middle. I found this a bit annoying since I felt I had already heard her story and had closure on it. I didn't want to hear it again.