That's kind of what I was thinking -- that for whatever personal reason, the Enjoyment Bus failed to pick up that reader when it drove by during the book's beginning, and left them sitting on their front step for the next hundred thousand words. The characters didn't move them, the plot didn't interest them, and it all happened from page one, not over the course of the book. It's a valid reaction, but the sheer intensity of the opinion startled me, juxtaposed so closely to the glowing PW review.