High Dive by Tammar Stein

From the Publisher

Arden has a plane ticket to Sardinia to say goodbye to her family’s beloved vacation home after her father’s sudden death and her mother’s deployment to Iraq as an army nurse. Lonely for her father and petrified for her mother’s safety, Arden dreads her trip to the house in Sardinia—the only place that has truly felt like home to her. So when she meets a group of fun, carefree, and careless friends on their summer break, she decides to put off her trip and join them to sample the sights and culinary delights of Europe. Soon they are climbing the Eiffel Tower, taking in the French countryside on a train chugging toward the Alps, and gazing at Michelangelo’s David in Florence, all the while eating gelato and sipping cappuccino. Arden tries to forget about the danger her mom faces every day, to pretend she’s just like the rest of the girls, flirting with cute European guys and worried only about where to party next.
But the house in Sardinia beckons and she has to make a choice. Is Arden ready to jump off the high dive?


From the Hardcover edition.

Children's Literature

With her mother serving as an army nurse in Iraq and her father deceased in a traffic accident a few years ago, Vanderbilt University student Arden Vogel is on her way to attend some family business in Sardinia when she impulsively undertakes a tour of Europe with a group of college girls she has just met. Lonely for her father and petrified about her mother's safety, Arden dreads her trip to Sardinia, even though it is the only place that has truly felt like home to her. When she meets a carefree group of fun-loving girls, she decides to put off her trip and join them in sampling the sights and culinary delights of Europe. She tries to forget about the dangers her mother faces every day and pretends she is just like the rest of the girls. But the house in Sardinia beckons, and she goes there, only to be followed by the girls. This is a novel brimming with laughter, tears and hope. It is timely. Reviewer: Naomi Butler

KLIATT

Although the cover features a pair of swimmer's feet as she dives from a cliff into the water below, there is little actual diving in this novel. The "high dive" is, of course, metaphorical and represents 19-year-old Arden's leap away from the safe and the expected into the unknown. She is propelled away from her normal routines by the unexpected death of her beloved father, and her mother's deployment as an Army nurse to the frontlines of Iraq. Her family has vacationed annually in a beach house they own in Sardinia, and Arden must travel there alone to prepare it for sale and remove any personal possessions that remain. On the way to Italy, she meets three girls from Texas who are traveling freestyle around Europe for the summer and impulsively joins them when they deplane in Paris. From there, the trip does not always go smoothly. She spends more money than she can afford, goes to places she doesn't necessarily want to see, and associates with people she doesn't particularly like, all the while sick with worry over her mother's safety and still grieving for her father. Yet, as time passes and her self-reliance grows, she forms friendships and connections she didn't have before. The theme of this book is really how bereft those left behind are when soldiers go to war. The ultimate message is that the world is a large and often scary place, but connections both old and new, along with the will to act and a belief that most people are essentially kind, can help you find zones of safety wherever you go. Reviewer: Myrna Marler

School Library Journal

Gr 6 Up- While flying to Europe, Arden, 19, meets three other college students heading for a fun-filled sightseeing tour; fairly typical Americans-in-Paris escapades ensue. But Stein goes beyond the usual in this moving novel about teens on the loose in a foreign country. Arden is more complex than many protagonists in popular teen fiction, and the fun-loving Texans she travels with are sketched with depth as supporting characters. The backstory is that Arden is on her way to close and sell her family's cherished vacation home in Sardinia after her father's death and her mother's deployment to Iraq as an Army nurse. Her inner musings are significant and subtle as she tries to make sense of the war and the loss of her dad. Readers reminisce with her as she struggles to face closing the only consistent home her small Army family has known. Paris and Italy come alive through Arden's eyes, and her sensitivity to local customs is beyond the carefree attitude her companions exhibit. In many ways, this is a quiet, introspective novel, but there is romance and laughter as well. Stein deftly portrays anguish, uncertainty, and unexpected joys, and not a moment drags as Arden's bittersweet journey unfolds. Ideal for the thoughtful armchair traveler, this story is engaging enough for readers on the long flight to the enduring wonders of Europe and emerging adulthood.-Roxanne Myers Spencer, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green

Kirkus Reviews

Traveling to Sardinia to say farewell to her family's vacation home, Arden struggles with other goodbyes that she has had to make in recent months. She is still reeling from the sudden death of her father in a car accident and her mother's deployment to Iraq. In an attempt to avoid this next one, Arden decides to change her original itinerary and join a trio of college girls, traveling through Europe for the first time. Unfortunately the drama of traveling with relative strangers in search only of the next party and the sporadic contact with her mother combine to make her feel even more isolated than before. Deciding to face her fears, she travels alone to her family's home in Italy. As she packs away some of her painful memories, Arden realizes that it is okay to be vulnerable, opening her heart to those around her. Arden's first-person voice seems at times older than her age might suggest, but her maturity is realistic when placed within the context of her life. Hopeful and real. (Fiction. 12 & up)

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