Instruct: Classify the given Amazon review into positive or negative sentiment.
Query: Flat and predictable

I was hoping for a pleasant distraction, but this books plot plays out as predicably as any formulaic made-for-TV movie. The principles are so flat that I had trouble finishing this very short work, mostly because I found myself not caring about what happened. Perhaps the worst contrivance I have ever read occurs when the male antagonist's father relates a story of how, as a boy he kidnapped and killed a neighbor's poorly treated dog (just as he was now kidnapping and perhaps killing a poorly treated girl). Yikes.