Task: Sentiment Analysis
Input (English): Who were the Mulvaneys? . This book was neither bad nor good and therefore leaves me with little inspiration to write a review. What must be said is that this book had great potential, which was never fully developed. The idea was good. Even some characters were good. Well, actually just Patrick. And come to think of it, I ended up liking Muffin (the cat) more than I did any of the other Mulvaneys. Though even as a cat lover, I got sick of hearing about Muffin and the other animals which were way too many in the first place.    The book did go on and on, too much description about the ordinary (and, oh so cliche at times!).I didn't like the way it jumped between 3rd person and 1st person narrative. I didn't find it confusing, I just found it awkward. It didn't give the chance to really get inside Judd's head (I mean, it was "his" story after all).     I couldn't love or hate anyone in the book. It was hard to tell what their motives were and "who" the real person was inside them. They seemed so in-and-out of character. Maybe that was the author's way of exposing them as phonies? I'm not sure. But without love or hate, there's really nothing left to feel as a reader. Left to chose between a ditzy mother, a jerk-of-a-father (but not a jerk enough to hate him or care about what happens to him), an eldest son who is like a prop in this book, a brainiac son who gets revenge only to disappear and become someone completely different without warning or reason, a victimized daughter, that you can't really feel all that sorry for, the youngest son (also a prop), I'm not sure who to root for (if anyone).    The worst part was, just when I started warming up to the book (forgiving its flaws, hoping for a great ending), I was hugely let down. It took me about a week to finish the last 2 chapters because the end of the book just dragged and I found myself too tired to pick it up. We are told in a quick (but ironically again, long and tedious) after-the-fact fashion about what has become of Marianne and then in the Epilogue everything is "wrapped up" quickly and neatly with no realism whatsoever. I feel if you're going to resolve things in the end, then RESOLVE them---Tell us what it is and how it came to be without just glossing over everything. The book was long enough; some pages should have been assigned to the ending instead of all the fluff in between. This is a book that should make you cry, but I felt nothing (and I am one of the biggest crybabies ever).     If you want a good book about family and family secrets, read Ann-Marie MacDonald's "Fall On Your Knees" or "The Way the Crow Flies" instead. Both excellent books.
Output (English): NEG