I didn't see this until after my other response. I generally only mean to be condescending when responding to someone who recommends García Márquez to beginners, but I imagine my responses to students looking for grammar books over time have become more and more curt as I've tired of explaining why grammar rules are not a "base" upon which the language is learned. I've done a lot of research over the last couple years in order to improve my teaching. Meanwhile, Spanish teaching in the US at most universities is stagnant. Most teachers do the same thing their own teachers did, who did the same thing their teachers did, and they demand all that same stuff from textbooks, which keep recycling basically the same grammar-first exercises and vocabulary lists they've always used, with the latest educational buzzwords thrown in, and charge my students a hundred dollars or more for it. The professors who run the departments don't care because they just teach literature to students who come to the university already advanced. It's a form of teaching that has never been supported by quality research, and it demotivates the vast majority of students and sometimes makes me want to give up teaching because I always have to compromise what's best for my students. So maybe that frustration comes through as condescension sometimes. In any case, all of that is obviously entirely irrelevant, none of it applies to your situation and my not reading thoroughly compounded it.

My first response was worthless, and that's entirely my fault. Your post had enough information that I should have been able to give a helpful answer. That said, it can make it easier to give advice if you give this kind of context in the OP. Also, course names and numbers change from university to university, and different classes have different approaches, so it's easier to give advice with more specific information about the classes if possible.