Review originally posted at Christa's Hooked on Books -- http://christashookedonbooks.blogspot... 
 In a burn ward a man lays dying. After a horrible car accident he is left covered almost entirely in severe burns. Slowly but surely he signs away his company to pay for his treatment, his friends disappear and his addiction to morphine continues to grow. He's begins to contemplate ending it all when a women appears in his room one day and changes everything. 
 Her name is Marianne Engel and she claims that she has lived for over seven hundred years. If that wasn't crazy enough she also claims that they first met in medieval Germany, where she was studying to become a nun and he was left at their monastery to heal after a particularly vicious battle. As she begins to tell him the tale of how they met and later fell in love, he is sure that she is crazy. A schizophrenic who has wandered down from the psych ward. But he feels oddly comforted by her presence, so he lets her continue. Little does he know, that this women is about to take him on an incredible journey that will change how he feels about her, life and himself. 
 I found The Gargoyle to be an interesting premise. I loved the idea of a love that could transcend all obstacles and reunite people after seven hundred years. Unfortunately, however, I had a hard time getting into this book. It moved slowly at the beginning and until Marianne arrives you're only really dealing with the main character and he annoys me to no end. The writing in this early part feels choppy and amateurish. There are so many similes and metaphors it can get a little corny at times. 
 The beginning was almost enough for me to declare this novel a DNF (did not finish) but this book had been sitting on my shelf for over a year now and since it had been so long I thought I could at least try and finish it. I'm really thankful that I did. The Gargoyle gets a million times better after Marianne shows up. Her stories - both of her own life and those of other star crossed lovers - are absolutely beautiful. The present day happenings of the book often don't even compare to the style and strength of those chapters. It is almost as if they are written by two different people. 
 All in all this book left me with mixed feelings. I didn't really like it but I also wouldn't say I disliked it. It was definitely a mixed bag. It left me with a lot to think about. Marianne's life (whether real or not) is an incredible one and there is definitely some deeper symbolism going on, which I found incredible. I don't know if that was enough, however, to make up for my dislike of the main character and the occasional over use of literary devices.