Swallowing Stones by Joyce McDonald is a realistic fiction story that is centered around guns and how they can affect people’s life. The theme is that bad choices always come with consequences. This book was very interesting and I enjoyed reading it very much. The book has some humor in it and at certain parts it gets really tense, with an on-the-edge-of-your-seat feeling. All of the characters were very interesting. It showed the points of view of the two main characters, Jenna and Michael. The main plot of the story is that Michael had just gotten his grandfather’s Winchester rifle on the fourth of July, and he and his best friend, Joe, decided to go in the woods and shoot the gun. Without realizing what harm this would cause, they shot bullets straight into the air with no regard for the people around him. About four blocks away, Jenna stood talking on the phone while her dad was working on the roof. The bullet shot by Michael landed in Charlie Ward’s head, killing him instantly. Throughout the book, Jenna and Michael work through their problems. Michael tries to hide the gun, and put some of the blame of the murder on Joe. He gets in trouble with his girlfriend, and in the meantime has to hide all of this from his parents and his nosy brother. Jenna on the other hand has to deal with the death of her father, and gets help from Amy Ruggiero, who had gone through her parents death as well. She and her mom work together to get through this time while trying to figure out who shot Charlie. I’m not going to give away the end, but we never really get to see what happens between Jenna and Michael. That’s one thing that bothered me about this book. I feel like it ended so abruptly with no explanation as to how they ended their problems with each other. I left the book thinking, “Where’s the rest of it?”, which kind of makes you wonder what else the author could’ve included. Other than that flaw, the book is pretty good! There is a lot of descriptive words and the story runs along very smoothly without dragging on, which is something I enjoy in a book. I definitely recommend this book if you want to read something a little more realistic, but still a good story. Let me know if you read it and what you think of it! Thanks for reading my book review!