Happy Booker

Through Glass is a journey into fear, loneliness, and despair as apocalyptic monsters begin a systematic takeover, quickly putting the surviving humans under their full control. The story begins full of hope, as young lovers, Lex & Cohen, are just discovering one another when suddenly the bottom drops out of their world and they find themselves trapped in their homes by strange and vicious monsters. They are forced to stand idly by as death rains down from above destroying everything they have ever known and leaving them only able to communicate with one another through the glass panes of their windows because to step outside would mean certain death.

The Ulama, the unnatural creatures bent on the world’s destruction, were terrifying yet so incredibly strange that it was difficult to understand what they were or what their purpose was. One thing was clear, these things were effective, shutting down any resistance with brutality and complete annihilation leaving any survivors in complete darkness and dependent solely on them for food and water. Lex’s fear and hopelessness was palpable throughout the story as she struggled just to live from day to day, not understanding why this was happening and with no end in sight. Her only solace was being able to see Cohen through her bedroom window each day and the encouragement they gave to one another to keep going.

I enjoyed the way the author built a sense of dread for the reader by making the Ulama so unpredictable and allowing the main characters to be harmed, not assuring the reader of a Happy Ending. I always prefer this kind of realistic desperation in a post-apocalyptic story because it pulls me in and makes it so much more believable. I find myself feeling panicked for the characters in an actual physical way, my heart starts racing and I’m practically yelling at the book “no, don’t do that!” or “Grab the lamp!!” because I’m just so invested in the story and real possibility of them coming to harm.

While there were certain aspects of the world building, which I felt was pretty choppy in the beginning and the writing style and flow that didn’t necessarily work for me, the story itself was so riveting that these things were very easy to overlook and are really just a matter of personal preference anyway. I would definitely recommend this to fans of horror and sci-fi with a post-apocalyptic theme. The Ulama were very original, I hadn’t read any kind of creatures like them before and I enjoyed trying to figure out what they were and their intentions & motivations. This is definitely a great October read when you want something that will leave you feeling a bit jittery and jumping at small sounds!