Beth H. (suburbanalien) reviewed on 10/6/2009 + 63 more book reviews

I am glad that I read this book. As to whether I "like" the book or not, I don't know. I can not imagine reading this book and having any context of the characters or storyline if I had not first seen the movie "Shattered Glass". I know, I know ... the author says that this book is a novel (meaning, he did not intend it to be taken as fact) but really, if you saw the movie, you'd be forgiven if you took this book as the author's defense of his actions and explanation of his state of mind. Again, I don't know whether I like the book or not. Taken as a standalone and trying to separate it from the movie, hmmm, I would say I would not have liked this book at all. The protaganist is so unlikeable and so resembling people I have known in my life to be annoying and needy and untrustworthy; the characters that were so likeable in "Shattered Glass" he makes to be cartoonishly evil and/or incompetent and/or petty so they are rendered unlikable in his book; and the probably-made-up characters (the pizza boy and the chat room girl) are eye-rollingly silly and not credible as real people. So, taken as a novel and not knowing the reason for this story, I would not have liked it. However, I really liked the movie "Shattered Glass" and actually keep a copy of it and lend it to anyone who will listen to me - because the themes in it really speak to such common human issues as trust, honesty, peer pressure, honor, popularity, responsibility, and others. So, I was glad for this book to round out some of the questions the movie left. Truthfully I would rather have read a book by Chuck Lane, fiction or not, than this, but this was all I found on the subject. I don't know if I recommend it or not. I will give it 4 stars because I am glad I read it, and feel that even though it did not provide me with the facts I was seeking, he didn't promise facts and he did deliver on his offering of a novel about the subject (a writer caught lying in a supposed non-fiction world) that was portrayed in "Shattered Glass".

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