The Seeing Stone
by Kevin Crossley-Holland

1 out of 5 stars

Merlin gives a seeing stone to thirteen-year-old Arthur de Caldicot, and he sees a vision of young Arthur Pendragon pulling the sword from the stone and becoming king. As Arthur from 1199 watches the visions of King Arthur from hundreds of years before, he begins to realize that events in his own life are mirroring those of his previous self. And Merlin is there to guide and advise them both.

I hated this book. For some reason it’s been reviewed before as a children’s book just because the protagonist is thirteen, but it is not at all appropriate for children. There’s domestic violence, foul language, sexual content, and a lot of medical content with explicit mentions of body parts. This is definitely a book written for adults.

This book has been screened on the Screen It First website, so you can see exactly what objectionable content is in this book. https://screenitfirst.com/book/the-seeing-stone-the-arthur-trilogy-1-1751420

I didn’t like Arthur’s character. I hated the journal writing structure, and I hated that it is written in present tense. Present tense annoys me so much. The whole book was just really really gross. It just got worse and worse as it went along.