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| High Dive | 
 enlarge | Author: Tammar Stein
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Category: Book
List Price: $15.99
Buy New: $2.70
You Save: $13.29 (83%)
Buy New/Used from $2.70
Avg. Customer Rating:  (1 reviews)
Sales Rank: 576930
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Reading Level: Young Adult
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.8 x 0.9
ISBN: 0375830243
EAN: 9780375830242
ASIN: 0375830243
Publication Date: June 10, 2008
Release Date: June 10, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
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?
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| Customer Reviews:
Part travelogue, part emotional rollercoaster August 5, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
For those teens and adults that enjoy travel and awesome food descriptions with some great drama thrown into the mix, Tammar Stein's new novel is perfect. When I was first sent this book and read the description, I was instantly hooked, as I am one of those that loves a combination like this. The writing is great, the emotion is very real, and the settings are magnificent.
High Dive is the story of Arden, an incredibly mixed up and lonely girl that is incredibly talented at putting on a happy face. Her father died in a car accident and her mother has recently been deployed to Iraq to fight the war, leaving Arden to take on the task of closing up the family vacation home in Sardinia. The house holds some of Arden's best memories of her family when they were still whole, together, and happy and she is having a difficult time allowing herself to begin the letting go process. While on the plane to Sardinia, she meets three girls from Texas, traveling to Paris for a vacation and Arden decides to join them, a very non-Arden thing to do. The girls learn about each other while exploring Paris, though Arden often feels like a fourth wheel. She can't decide if these girls are helping her to let go of the thoughts of her old family life or if they are only making her long for it more. By the end, not only does Arden get the answer to this question, she also learns more about herself, her strength, and her ability to grow than she ever thought possible.
The country descriptions alone will grab the reader, but Arden's fragile emotional state is the true shining star in this book. I felt connected to her immediately and wanted to know everything she knew. Strong, yet vulnerable characters that come across as beautifully lost as Arden do not come along nearly as often as we would all like, but if you pick High Dive up for yourself or a teen, you will not be sorry. I loved it and know a lot of you will as well.
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