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)
