My younger sister read this book. I don't know how she made it all the way through. Now, in our family, we get easily starved for books, and sometimes we read each other's bad books just for something to read and talk about. Pitiful, maybe, but there it is. Such was the case with Stoneheart. The cover art was amazing, and there was one excerpt-paragraph on the back that I read and liked, so I thought, okay, I'll give it a try. Nothing else to do.

I never finished it. The characters and their accents were abominable. I actually celebrated when The Gunner "expired", but then, having seen the book accomplish one good thing, I put it down and resigned myself to a throbbing skull. I was ready to burn the darned thing when my sister then informed me that he comes back.

I think I whined and shouted and snarled quite a bit, after my initial disbelief. She just smirked at me. I suppose, even though she didn't enjoy the book either, she liked watching me rip out my hair. Go figure.

The paragraph on the back was the only well-written paragraph in the book, so I know why they picked it. The story was annoying and senseless. I don't know if the author avoided solid explanations like the plague, or if he just dumped them all at the end, but that irritated me, too. I suppose I'll never find out, one way or another. I can't and won't read any further.

Oh, and I hate it when authors write books like this, and then people defend it by saying "it's a children's book". Children have the right to read good literature, just like anybody else. I've read good children's books. This wasn't one of them.