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Shadow on the Glass, part one of a four book series, is one of those rare reads that don't come along very often. And for that I am very thankful. Rarely have I read a book with such poor writing, such inept and unlikeable characters, and such a weak plot. Rarely have I read a book that I would rather burn then donate to the local library. Rarely have I read a book that (sorry there is just no other word), sucks so much as this book.

Don't get me wrong. I've read some bad books, but they were short little things written by my ninth grade English students. Honestly, some of those were better than this book. I will never understand how Irvine managed to get this little gem published. It reeks of amature writing.

I suppose instead of going on a bashing fest without details, I should include a few of the more specific problems.

• Annoying characters: The main characters, Llian and Karian, make no sense. One minute they hate each other, the next minute they are best friends. Llian is immature and can't even survive without an allowance from his college (he's 28 years old!). Neither seem to have any survival skills, but somehow they manage to elude the all mighty Whelm, a creature that is supposed to be super scary but that isn't scary at all to this reader.
• Non-sensical plot: I've read several reviews at amazon (I think they are written by Irvine's friends) that claim the plot is orginal and well done. I suppose there is some orginality, but it is far from well done. I still think the story should have ended early on when Karian was attacked by hundred of leeches. Apparently it didn't bother her too much. Neither did the broken arm or any number of other injuries. Basically the story is just one big chase scene, with the heros making narrow escapes that make no sense.

• Bad writing: I felt like I needed to take a red pen to the pages of this book. Grammatical mistakes were everywhere, the sentence construction was often mangled, and the point-of-views shifted in mid-paragraph. It made the book difficult to read. After a while I just gave up. In the credits, Irvine thanks his editor, but I am not so sure he should have. Or maybe his poor editor did her best and he just refused to take her suggestions. I don't know, but if he turned this book in as an English assignment for my 9th grade class, he would have had to re-write it. He definitely would not have passed the state requirments for grammar, voice, organization, sentence structure or content.

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