Instruct: Classify a review into positive or negative sentiment.
Query: Maybe if it were 1/2 it's length...

I kept hoping the book would pick up, so I got about half way through when I realized it wasn't going to get better. At that point, I can either stop reading, when I was about 300 pages already in, or keep going. I decided to keep going and it didn't really pay off. By the time you get to what I think the author considers the "big reveals", they are not satisfying. The characters behind the mysteries are confusing, and I found myself thinking, "I don't even remember who this person is!" The main questions that keep the lead character going are interesting, the book did not have to be over 600 pages! I also didn't care for the many references to the "darker" or "paler" nation as a reference to someone's race. John Grisham writes far better legal fiction, predominately in the south, without making such strange references to race.