Great content, cumbersome presentation. That couplet best describes the reference book Spanish Grammar for Independent Learners by Avigail Azoulay and Arie Vicente.

Spanish Grammar does an effective job of explaining nearly all the rules of grammar that confront beginning and intermediate students. Charts, illustrations and an abundance of examples all would serve the student well as a supplement to just about any textbook.

Two features of this book are outstanding. First is a section on self-correction, designed to help students of the language check their own work for errors. Second is a long list of verb complements, useful even for advanced students, detailing which prepositions and other words go with which verbs. Learn here, for example, that "to think about" is pensar en and that contar con means "to rely upon."

Where this book unfortunately falls short is in its indexing. Finding what you want can be frustrating, as there isn't enough multiple referencing, and many grammatical terms are indexed by their Spanish names and not their English ones. Also, oddly enough, the index isn't in the back of the book, since it is followed by an English-Spanish verb list.

The book's organization does take getting used to. Fortunately, those who use the book over a period of time will find that it contains a wealth of information for Spanish learners at all levels.