Dive

by Adele Griffin

Eleven-year-old Ben and his older stepbrother Dustin have never been close. In fact, they could not be more different. Ben's always had an easy relationship with Dustin's dad, Lyle; Dustin prefers to hold himself sullenly "outside touching distance." So when first Ben's restless mother, then Dustin, decide to leave the only place he has ever called home, Ben refuses to follow. Now Dustin has been in a diving accident, and Ben and Lyle must go to him. For Ben, the journey brings the chance to face his long-absent mother, and to confront Dustin, an elusive figure he has alternately worshipped and resented, whose soul is more troubled than Ben can understand. In a first-person narrative addressed to his stepbrother, this is the story of the difficult choices and complicated relationships that make up all families.

Genres: Young Adult

176 pages, Paperback

First published October 15, 1999

About the author

I'm on Goodreads a lot as a reader-- my author bio has always been a copy-paste of my Wikipedia. But now it seems like the right time and place to delete the old 3rd person official bio and add some backstory on my upcoming book FIRST LOVE LAST LOVE. (It's out November 3, and available now on NetGalley.)

Growing up in a single-parent home in Rhode Island, I was often in my mother's Toyota Corolla as she juggled work with bank and grocery errands, plus three kids' dentist appointments and after-school activities. A lot of car time! Her go-to calm was music, so her glove box stacked with cassette tapes, including Dan Fogelberg's The Innocent Age. There was this one particular song about an old romance meetup-- years later in a grocery story on a winter night-- that absolutely gutted her. My little brothers and I never would have asked, but we knew this song was Not making her think about our dad. And every time she played it, she was lost to private old memories. I was probably writing that romance in my head even then.

What happens when the great love of your life suddenly returns? How much of that first love is about the person, and how much of it is about who you used to be? And if that old song comes calling, do you stay inside the life you've carefully built, the one that makes sense, or risk it for the possibility of another self, another life?

This story belongs to Vida and Elijah, but I think the pull of these choices belongs to everyone. Writing the book certainly made me think all about ambition and motherhood and marriage and regret, and all the younger selves we have to leave behind-- and I think that's one of the the things I enjoy most about writing-- you begin somewhere that feels so real and known, and then by the end, you've made something so unexpected, and a whole different space from where you began.
xA.

website: www.adelegriffin.com


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Open Road Media interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSa3P...

Reviews

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm really not a fan of stories told in second person, and while it wasn't every chapter, it still bothered me. I found the plot interesting, but I never really got invested in any of the characters. There were really nice bits here and there, but the overall flow of the book was so disjointed that I found myself not really caring what happened to anyone.

[Brianna Davies · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't sure of the lack of plot- the story was mostly introspection as the story was told over the course of a day or so but detailed the character's past. It wasn't until the very end that I found that Dive did something for me. I'm not exactly sure what, but I think everyone takes something different away from this quick read.

[Jill Lapoint · Rating 5 out of 5]

Light read from a unique perspective.

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

i read this when i was younger, there has to be a reason why i still own it