This is exactly what I would expect from a young adult book. The story has potential but there were so many points I found myself asking "how does this add to the story? What is the point?" Too much time was spent on scenes meant to convince us "black stone bad" which was accomplished very quickly making most of those scenes pointless and not enough time was spent developing the characters to the point where deaths had little to know actual impact. It felt like some characters were introduced just enough so they could be killed later but there was no reason for the audience to care. All in all the book was very okay.