Instruct: Classify Amazon reviews into positive or negative sentiment
Query: Please, Hannibal deserves better

I'm sorry, but this is an awful book. I've never written such a thing in a review before, but I'm absolutely aghast that this thing ever got in to print. The story of Hannibal's war with Rome is one of the most engaging, dramatic stories in world history and it should make for wonderful fiction. Mr. Leckie, unforetunately, reduces Hannibal to a paper thin ogre of a man, and fills the novel with unpleasant extremes far outside what's required to tell the story. That's not to say that I shy away from violence. Just the opposite. I know how violent the times were. But Ross Leckie's writing is artless and that renders all else in doubt. Reading this novel is like chewing cardboard. It's like driving splinters up into your fingernails. Don't do it. Read the other negative reviews on this website and believe them! Await the day when Hannibal finds the storyteller to do his tale justice. When that happens, we might all be in for a great read.