The Light We Lost by Jill Santopolo didn't really work for me, but I wanted to give the author another try because although I didn't love that particular story, I did love Santopolo's magical and eloquent writing style. I'm so glad I decided to read her newest novel! More Than Words was a captivating story filled with lots of drama and romance, but more than that it is a story about one woman's journey through heartbreak, loss, and grief to find out who she really wants to be.

Thank you to Edelweiss, Penguin Publishing Group - G.P. Putnam’s Sons and Jill Santopolo for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review. She has known her boyfriend Tim, since childhood, though they have only been "dating for eight months". It "makes sense" that they end up together...but is that enough? In that book, Lucy struggled to resolve her feelings for 'the one who got away" with “the one who took his place”.Mindfulness has a range of meanings as it"has become a trend word conveying a diversity of understandings dependent on context" (Crane, 2017, p. 586) and can encompass... Narrative reference The More Than Words guidebook makes it easy for you to "zero in" on your child's stage of communication so that you'll better understand his needs and abilities.

And, if I may, a word of advice for fans of The Light We Lost, go in with an open mind. Nina’s might be a completely different journey from Lucy and Gabe’s, but it’s stunning in its own right. Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone." The word count of Ursula K. Le Guin’s six-book Earthsea series is 480,503. That’s like reading Stephen King’s The Stand: Uncut at 471,485 words and a third of Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea at 26,601 words. A Wizard of Earthsea If you have lost a parent you were very close to, or found yourself tempted by someone you work for, YOU may connect with this book more than her first, or more than I did.Jill Santopolo is the author of the The Light We Lost, the Alec Flint Mysteries, the Sparkle Spa series, and the Follow Your Heart books. She holds a BA in English Literature from Columbia University, an MFA in Writing for Children from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and a certificate in Intellectual Property Law from NYU. Jill is also the Editorial Director of Philomel Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group. When she’s not writing or editing, Jill is a thesis advisor at The New School in their MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults and is on the faculty of the Columbia Publishing Course. Jill has traveled all over the U.S.—and to Canada and Europe—to speak about writing and storytelling. She lives in New York City.

I’m writing a novel. You’re writing a novel. We’re all writing or reading novels. But how long is too long? How short is too short? If you’re obsessing over how many words your novel should be, it’s a good idea to consult the word counts of popular novels as a frame of reference. In this post, you’ll find the word counts of 175 (well, it’s actually 177, but 175 sounds cleaner!) classic, bestselling, award-winning novels, from books you’d recognize from high school English to recent hits. Along the way, I’ll analyze the word counts and note a few interesting trends. It’s my hope this list can be a resource for other writers like me who wonder how long a novel should be. I hope to follow it up with a children’s literature specific list. This book contained a few tropes/topics I didn't love - insta-love and sex-shaming. And it was kind of hard for me to move past them.

1. Artamène/Cyrus the Great

a set of printed sheets of paper bound together between covers and forming a work of fiction or nonfiction

Nina's life has not been perfect and has been marred by several tragedies. When another sudden tragedy strikes, she forces herself to confront her life and what she wants for her future. She also uncovers certain facts that cause her to question everything she has ever held dear. Will she take the comfortable path or will she take a chance and live her life to the fullest? Matters of the heart are often irrational, so prepare yourself. There's no getting around the love triangle here. I have to hand it to Santopolo, she succeeds in delivering two very easy to adore men. I truly felt for Nina—how could she choose knowing heartbreak was inevitable in any scenario? My hope, Tim or Rafael would do something, anything really, to change my opinion, making the right choice evident. And, while I can’t say that happened per se, ultimately, I think Nina ended up where she was meant to. The ending is best described as predictable or cookie-cutter, but sweet nonetheless. Who knows, maybe Santopolo wanted to save her readers from all of the ugly crying this time around. Either way, in my mind, the story demanded a conclusion with a tad more bite.Making the most of your child's interests and special preferences, More Than Words can show you how to take any daily activity and turn it into a fun and natural way to help your child communicate. And because you're interacting closely with your child the whole time, you'll be connecting in new ways and learning things about each other you never knew before! But, I think that with any book such as this, your personal experiences will dictate how much you connect ( or don't connect ) emotionally with a book.