I really couldn't get into this one. I felt so indifferent to it all that I just had to call it. It wasn't the book for me.

500 words of Less follows Nic who refuses to spend her senior year label as someone who cheated on her loveable boyfriend. To redefine her reputation she began writing college admissions essays for her classmates but the more she writes them the harder it is for her to find herself. Will she learn to follow the moral paths of what's right.


This is a 373 pages book, there were parts I enjoyed and parts that I didn't. I liked the parts of her writing the college essays and her learning how we'll she does know her fellow classmate. I didn't like how obsessed she is with him, in an unhealthy way. I would have liked the characters to be more fleshed out.

This is written in verse and I did enjoy the writing and will be looking into other books by Juleah del Rosario.

500 Words or Less was a beautifully structured novel about what it truly means to discover who you are and what you stand for, despite all of the odds stacked against you.

After cheating on her boyfriend, high school senior Nic Chen was determined to salvage her reputation. She began a business of writing her classmates' college admissions essays. While she wrote personal essays for classmates she barely knew, her perception of her classmates and understanding of herself changed.

I enjoy reading novels written in verse, but did not think the verse style worked in this book. Prose writing would cause the book to have a better flow, since I struggled with the pacing of the novel-in-verse. Prose was used for the essays Nic wrote for her classmates, which I thought was one of the most enjoyable parts of the book. If prose has been used throughout, I think I would have gotten a better picture of the novel's characters, whom Nic portrayed in their college admissions essays.

I wish I would have known that the main plot of the book (Nic's college admissions essay business) would not be introduced until 60 pages into the book. There was a lot about how Nic was obsessed with her ex-boyfriend Ben (whom she had cheated on). I generally prefer YA novels without boy-crazy protagonists. Also, no spoilers, but I did not like the end of the novel at all. It was unnecessary. I would have liked the novel more without the superfluous plot points. Overall, I am giving this book 2 stars.

I requested this book by impulse due to my natural attraction to poetry. Furthermore, the synopsis had me trapped and immediately hooked with the story. With it, I ended up thinking that this would be a beautifully written coming of age story, bringing my hopes and expectations up through the roof. However, I could not have been more wrong and therefore disappointed.

As I mentioned before, I knew that this was in verse, but unfortunately that was what didn't work for me: it would have been better written as prose. I don't think I'll be picking up anything else by this author, and I'm rather disappointed with my experience with this book.

Something that I enjoyed was that it was a quick read and I flew through it, and I am glad I did because I do not think I would have spent a single more minute with it. The ending was something else, and that is why I'm rating it that high, because I wouldn't have done it otherwise.

This book was extremely unique in format, and I truly enjoyed it. It was also great in that it was a quick read, which is the whole concept (500 words or less) and I like that a lot!

I’m a huge fan of books written in verse, so I’m very drawn to them. The synopsis of this one had me immediately interested. I was thinking this would be a beautifully written coming of age story, which would just be light hearted and easy to read.

At first I was very annoyed with Nic, she was very self absorbed in my opinion, but as I thought this was more of a coming of age story. I loved the person Nic was slowly turning in to. I almost wondered why the author decided to tell Nic’s story in verse, I didn’t really see what it added.

Throughout the first 3/4 of the book I found it ok, nothing outstanding but enjoyable. I was convinced I was going to rate it a solid 3 stars. Suddenly the story turned, it was heart-breaking and I felt connected to the characters in a way I felt I was missing through the whole beginning (mostly the whole book). Once that happened I felt like I was missing the whole potential this book had. Overall, I enjoyed it and feel it was worth the read.

I picked up this book because I knew that it was written in verse, but unfortunately that was the part that didn't work for me. I think this story would have been better served in regular prose, but it could have been especially amazing in essay format. Alas, the format really didn't work for me and the story was just okay. I don't think I'll be picking up anything else by this author, and I'm rather disappointed with my experience with this book.

I went into 500 Words or Less not knowing it was written in verse. It’s not a style I gravitate towards (despite my love of poetry) but I wanted to give it a shot because I like the premise of her story. It’s about Nic Chen, who is dealing with the aftermath of cheating on her boyfriend, a very popular and beloved guy at her school. To distract people from her new and very much unwanted reputation, she uses her excellent writing skills to write her classmates’ college essays. I actually really enjoyed the essays and while they’re about her classmates, if you read between the lines they say a lot about her too. But I still never felt as if I truly got to know Nic or feel invested in her circumstances. That said, I wanted to. I wanted to know more about her, this “perfect” ex-boyfriend and the guy she cheated on. And while we do eventually learn about what happened and who was involved, there was still a huge disconnect for me. I think that might’ve been attributed to the verse format, which didn’t seem necessary or conducive to telling this particular story.

Do I recommend? If you enjoy verse, I think it’s worth giving a shot but if you’re on the fence like I am, I might pass on this one.

I know that I enjoyed the essays and how the main character was able to come to terms with her own identity by exploring the representation of others.

A confused narrator does little to elucidate the events of this novel, which is primarily told in verse. With a non-sequential timeline and a lack of clarity as to which characters are speaking or performing various action, this is a hot mess.

Honestly, this one was just meh. Creating a good narrative with prose poetry is tricky and this one was sort of a miss. It was overly maudlin, I didn't really care about the characters, and there seemed to be no rhyme or reason for any of the decisions that the main character made. I just really really didn't care for this book. I wanted to! And I liked some parts of it--it was really interesting to see the story from the main character's point of view, but that wasn't enough for me to like it.

Rosario's 500 Words or Less is a poignant, raw look into the heart of one young woman's senior high school year. Told entirely through free verse poetry, Nic Chen's story is one of unbearable loneliness and devastating loss. Two years ago, Nic and her best friend Ben became more than just friends. In one drunken night, all that changes. In the aftermath, Ben leaves, transferring to a different school. Throughout senior year, Nic remembers the past, consumed with what might have been. With Ben. With her own broken family. With the friends she lost. In writing college essays for classmates, Nic discovers things about herself, things that let her slowly begin to heal. Come second semester, Nic learns Ben has returned to her school. As she's learning to adjust to these changes, the unthinkable happens, and Nic is never able to find a reconciliation with Ben.

This is such a sad story! It really captures the feel of crushing loneliness that can come from been different, and being shunned. It really made me sit back and recall my own high school/college friends. And how we hurt one another rather badly, in different ways. I thought about what might’ve been, how we could have done things differently. I tend to get stuck in the past, with the might have beens. I don't like change, even though I know it is inevitable. It is the way of all things. Everyone has to grow up, has to change, to evolve.

And quite often, that change around, and to, us is immutable, irreversible. We can go with it, or be crushed by it. The choice is ours. Reading this prompted me to reconnect with someone who was once my best friend, someone who betrayed me badly, yet who I forgave. Someone I hurt badly because I was not mature enough to process my deepest inculcated behaviours, to act from a place of calm, instead of react in the moment. When a simple, yet deep, story can affect the reader so, well you know it must be a good one! Highly recommended!!

***Many thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster/ Simon Pulse for providing an egalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

When I read the blurb for this book for the first time I was immediately intrigued: a YA novel in verse about a high achieving student in an ivy-league obsessed school who attempts to salvage her reputation after a scandal by writing her classmates admissions essays? Yes, please! Drama among high achieving high school or college students has always been a particular literary catnip of mine and after the recent release of some incredible YA novels in verse like The Poet X and The Same Blood I was ready to be blown away by more powerful poetry. This novel however differs from these books in almost every way, in style, content and emotional impact and while in the latter category I found it to fall short of it’s peers, it still delivers an engrossing and touching if slightly familiar message of to high school readers looking to wanted to explore contemporary YA stories in verse form.

Let me start with my conclusion. My overall impression of this book was a positive one. The characters are complex and flawed and undergo growth throughout the story in a way that feels authentic to a cohort of high achieving, privileged high school students. The verse is clean and direct in a way that let’s the story flow and feels accessible to readers who are new to YA novels in verse (I would count myself among this number) and perhaps most importantly the themes that it touches upon like pressure (parental, peer and self imposed), status, grief, bullying, slut shaming and racism to name a few are very pertinent to its target reader audience and handled in a way that is authentic and nuanced. The book’s central theme of the importance of looking past the status labels that high school students give each other and themselves like jock and prep is a familiar but poignant one.

The big issue for me that kept the book from reaching that kept me from loving as opposed to liking this book was the uneven pacing the contrast in tension between the first and second half of the book. The first half is mainly exposition to set up Nic’s moral conflict and lead up to establishing an essay writing business and the second half resolves many of Nic’s internal dilemmas while also throwing in some genuine emotional curveballs that had me turning pages as fast as I could. While this build up is expected in any story the contrast is so start that it is distracting in this case, and the excitement in the second half only serves to highlight how little I was hooked during the first part.

The second elements is a little more subjective and perhaps might have been related to reading this book in a digital formal rather than a physical copy but I did not find the use of verse to particularly enhance the story especially, during the first half. While other books in verse are a little more inventive with their formating which they use to emphasize the emotional impact of particular scenes, this books was fairly conventional sticking to 2-5 line stanzas throughout the most part which did not detract but also did not add much to the reading experience. I felt that you could have simply formatted the sentences into verse and had the same story. In the later half you do get more a sense that you are reading poetry but for a YA book in verse this was a bit disappointing. This does improve in the second half especially when Nic is focusing on her relationship with her mother, the verse becomes much more fluid and powerful and

I do want to highlight some of the aspects of the book that I greatly enjoyed and that I felt del Rosario nailed. The first is the voice. 500 Words or Less captures the voice and experiences of a teenage girl in a way that feels true to life. Nic’s voice is full of wry humor and subdued tensions in her relationship with her parents, her peers, her boyfriend and her friend which feels very true to teenage life. True to the subject matter, we do occasionally get pages like:

“If only drinking a pumpkin spice latte
Was like
A million hugs,
Then maybe
Everything would be
Okay.
But what good
Are a million hugs,
When you only need
one?”

But hey what would teenage life be like without an eyeroll moment or two right?

As good as Nic’s voice was my absolute favorite part about 500 Words or Less is that it includes some drafts of the essays that Nic writes for her peers which I found delightful to read and were both the narrative voice and the book’s message is the strongest. Del Rosario’s message on looking beyond one-dimensional high school labels, on healing and getting back up once you’ve been knocked down and how sometimes it’s ok to not be ok is if not an original one an important and one well reading through Nic Chen’s perspective.




Read if you:

Are looking to start reading books in verse
Like school centric narratives about high achievers
Enjoy reading essays, letters, etc within the main text



Disclaimer: I was given a free e-galley from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of this review. All opinions are my own.

500 WORDS OR LESS by Juleah del Rosario is absolutely a new favorite young adult novel of mine. I am looking forward to introducing students, other librarians, and even parents to this novel which is written in verse. Del Rosario's debut is a relatively quick and engaging read and I sincerely hope that it is nominated for state awards because I think that students will relate to the characters. Big themes have to do with loneliness, forgiveness, and especially with identity and discovering who we are, particularly when in high school. There is plenty of drama and shunning after a hook-up between biracial Nic Chen and her boyfriend's best friend, Jordan. Del Rosario explores the double standard: "Was there even a male equivalent / to the word 'whore'? .... He didn't have to wear/ Ra-Bans or Chuck Taylors, / or fluorescent-colored anything, / because the way he wore / his arrogance / was enough / to attract / his admirers."

And when an unrelated video is edited and posted online, another female classmate says, "For a month, / every time I saw / a guy staring as his phone / for more than two minutes, / I thought he was watching / my video, watching / me." In response, Nic asks, "How many of us / had walked through these halls / and felt / exactly the same / as Miranda?"

500 WORDS OR LESS could be used as a One Room One Read book for advisees (homeroom students) and their parents, especially given some of the trauma related to issues of abandonment, of sexual relationships, and of alcohol abuse by both students and a parent. Overall, Del Rosario exhibits a fantastic ability to manipulate words, as shown by both the main text and the inclusion of college application essays which Nic writes for a variety of classmates. In addition to the quotes above, I highlighted many sections to discuss, like: "Why didn't anyone tell me / how difficult / senior year would be? / How difficult it was to / sit in AP class after AP class, / swallowing facts / by the handful / until you just wanted to vomit / up your entire education." OR "I should have known / a boy's shrug / meant apathy, / not answers. / But I wanted so badly / to be / all his answers." Look for 500 WORDS OR LESS in the library; del Rosario's acknowledgments include one more key quote: "let's keep making the world a place where stories can thrive, knowledge is created, and everyone has access to both."

Nic is tired of being the girl with a bad reputation in school, especially since it's her senior year of high school. When several students approach her and ask her to write their college application essays, she reluctantly agrees with the hope that it will improve her reputation. As Nic writes about people she doesn't know very well, she comes to realize that she knows even less about herself. Can she fix what happened in the past, or must she learn to just move on?
This book is written almost entirely in verse, except for the essays. I think the format works well for the subject matter and for Nic's unique voice. This is such a sad story, yet I think it holds valuable lessons for people in all stages of life. What does it mean to know yourself? How do my decisions impact others? What is the most important in life and relationships? This was a quick read, yet an impactful one. I didn't agree with some of the views expressed, and I didn't care for the profanity or sexual promiscuity. I do agree with the way the characters' bad decisions were dealt with and I think this is a valuable read with good lessons included.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. A positive review was not required, and all opinions expressed are entirely my own.

3.5⭐️
Nic Chen is seen in a negative light since a party that caused her then-boyfriend to transfer schools and her best friend to stop talking to her. In an effort to change everyone’s minds, she starts writing her classmates’ college application essays (hence the title), that leads her on a journey of self-discovery.

Here’s the thing...I think I could have loved this book if it wasn’t written in verse. To be frank, I just couldn’t find the reason for it being written in that manner. Perhaps I just missed it; however, I would have connected so much more with the characters and gotten more out of the story if it had been written traditionally. This isn’t to say that there aren’t some amazing messages in here that work well in verse, because there are...but, it just felt unnecessary for the whole book to be written that way. There were also quite a few parts where I was super confused on who was speaking and who was being talked about which could have been clarified if not in verse. Overall, there were great messages, and it’s definitely worth a read!

.. I'm not entirely sure how to feel about this book?
It was a lot more heartbreaking than I thought it'd be that's for sure..
The topics Juleah del Rosario chose to tackle made me enjoy this book. Racism, double standards when it comes to cheating, and finding your true self. And I enjoyed the main character, Nic. She was different than the typical YA heroine and I appreciated this. She was not perfect or even likable at times but she was honest and incredibly human. In the end she wanted what we all do, to be accepted and loved.
.. There were a lot of things I didn't enjoy about this book though. It mostly had to do with Nic's ex-boyfriend and the strange love triangle. I guess I hated it and loved it? On one side it was realistic in a lot of ways because in high school I knew a Nic, Ben, and Jordan.. On the other side it was just really extra? The ending.. Yikes. It was too heartbreaking. I don't think it has anything to do with Juleah del Rosario's writing but more to do with my reading preferences.. I just wasn't a fan of all that mess.
I guess this book just goes to show that you can fall hard and come out alive at the end of the day, and hopefully it's as the person you're meant to be.

500 Words or Less is a beautiful read that draws you in from the beginning and holds your attention until the very end. A lovely written and creative story that will leave you wanting more

I liked this novel about high school angst and imperfect families. Nic, Ben, and Jordan are best friends until Ben and Nic started dating. Then one night, Nic and Jordan betray Ben. None of them are the same. To find herself and her purpose, Nic begins writing admission essays for her classmates. In 500 words or less, she shows them to us, scars and all. I appreciate the publisher and NetGalley allowing me to be an early reader in exchange for my honest review.