The Language of Sand by Ellen Block

This is a story about grief, how to work through it and get beyond it so that you can maintain a life on the other side of losing someone you love. At the end of this book, Abigail, who is a lexicographer by profession, is stuck between the objectivity of the word "grief" and her own feelings of grief. On page 242: Dictionaries were intended to be impartial and exact, yet the act of defining a word reflected the passions and prejudices of the definer. A dictionary is supposed to be beyond subjectivity, yet the best dictionaries had come from those with the strongest personalities, the zealots and idealist who sought to teach and to preach, to politicize and to moralize. Abigail could try to be objective about her grief and acknowledge it for what it was, or she could define it by her own biases and feel it as it came.

Abigail leaves her home to become the lighthouse caretaker on Chapel Isle. She isn't as much running from her grief as she is searching for comfort in a place that her husband treasured. It's a huge change for her, to say the least. I like how she stuck it out, despite the "lighthouse ghost", the island thief, the hostility shown towards her by some of the islanders. There were some unique personalities on Chapel Isle, some of them dealing with their own grief. I thought they were very helpful to Abigail in the end. Abigail will never be "Abigail the Boston lexicographer" again, the way she was before the fire. After spending time on the island though, with it's eclectic population, she is able to re-invent herself into "Abby the lexicographer who reads romance novels and tends a broken down lighthouse".

I didn't really like or understand the story surrounding Sheriff Larner. It's the only element of the story that doesn't sit right with me. I get that Abigail doesn't report him because she wants him to let Nat go, but Sheriff Larner was in the wrong and Nat wasn't. So why can't the truth prevail over all? I am glad that Nat was released, but Sheriff Larner should have gotten what he deserved.

I sensed a relationship growing between Abigail and Nat, but I am glad that there was still so much distance between them in the end. Abigail needs to spend her time grieving, and although Nat isn't as rough around the corner as perceived by many, I didn't want the author to slap a relationship on them in this book. It does say that she is writing a sequel to this book though.... Of course this book was published in 2010, so if she wrote it, I am sure it's out there. I will have to research that. I would read it too.

Wendy's Rating: ****