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| The Highest Tide: A Novel | 
| Author: Jim Lynch
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $23.94 (100%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  58 reviews
Sales Rank: 201565
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 6 x 1.1
ISBN: 1582346054
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9781582346052
ASIN: 1582346054
Publication Date: September 8, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
"Maybe the earth is trying to tell us something" May 11, 2008
Miles O'Malley is like many 13 year olds in plenty of respects. His parents are getting separated, he is infatuated with his former babysitter and 17 year old neighbor and is a science geek. Furthermore, his best friend is Florence, an elderly woman with a Parkinson's-like nervous disorder rendering her housebound and increasingly reliant on Miles for day-to-day tasks.
What separates Miles from other 13 year olds is his exceptional knowledge of tidal pools, specifically one at the southern end of Puget Sound near Olympia, WA, marine life and his fascination and admiration for Rachel Carson. One summer night, as Miles battles one of his frequent cases of insomnia, he sneaks down to the water and discovers one of the rarest of sea creatures, a giant squid. Soon Miles becomes a local and then national celebrity for his frequent finds in the South Sound waters of non-native species.
I am not a marine biologist and didn't expect to be as fascinated with the vivid details that Lynch paints of barnacles, cephalopods and other fairly obscure marine life that most casuals observers won't be familiar with. I can't say that every bit of detail kept me engrossed, but as someone living in the Seattle area, I was probably more predisposed to a lot of the detail of the sea life and especially the geography of the area than I normally would have been.
For a first time novel, I thought this novel worked on several levels. It's a great coming of age tale, perfectly capturing the fear, insecurity, hope and infatuation of a modern day young teenager. As a novel of the sea, Lynch certainly demonstrates his knowledge and acumen of marine life, captures the power and deep rooted mystical power of the sea. And as an allegory.
Lynch certainly is someone that I'll keep my eye on for his second novel given the promise he showed in "The Highest Tide".
Impressive First Novel April 4, 2008
Lynch's The Highest Tide is a great read for two reasons. First, because of the strong environmentalist imperative that drives the book. Lynch is a talented writer, but he's also ensconced himself within a tradition that is very important---and in the process of being revitalized---within the American literary landscape. Granted, the book does become a bit didactic in places, while in other places it becomes difficult to take the Rachel Carson-quoting Miles (the main character) seriously, but it's impossible not to take the book's thesis seriously: "Maybe the earth is trying to tell us something." The book acknowledges that human beings, so caught up with themselves and their immediate concerns, seldom take the time to really look and listen to their natural surroundings. This is where Lynch's book, which is a summons for us stop, enjoy and appreciate nature, becomes so important.
Second, yes, as everyone else has acknowledged, this is a wonderful coming of age novel. While Miles' insatiable appetite for anything and everything having to do with mariene biology is almost impossible to relate to, as is the fact that his best friend is an ailing senior-citizen psychic, Lynch paints Miles with painstaking tenderness. Despite his unusualness (which Miles fully acknowledges himself), Miles emerges as a relatable character; he's curious, fallible, vunerable, frightened, slightly rebellious, unsure of himself at times, given to bouts of romanticism . . . in short, your typical adolescent.
I really enjoyed this book overall. Lynch has a way with words and his use of figurative language is very tight. The book is a fast read, it's humorous, its characters are interesting, and its message is moving.
 Great Book!!!!! March 5, 2008
I read this book, a little while ago, and I thought it was a great book. It has alot of detail, and you really get the image of what the character is finding. I'm eleven and I read this book, it was at some times innapropriate, but I suggest this book to 12 year olds and up.
 Strange February 24, 2008
This book is slow paced and interesting. However, it did leave me wanting a little more out of Lynch. The main character is great, and all the characters really are really well developed, the story line, I felt needed something a little more to it.
Moving literary drama about growing up and ocean wonders September 23, 2007
I'm still reeling from the glorious images of the ocean that Jim Lynch put in my head with his prose. It made the ocean come alive for me, filled me with more wonder than I've had in a long time.
Miles O'Malley, the protagonist, lives right by the mudflats of Puget Sound, and because he cares enough to pay attention, he finds wonderful things like a dying giant squid, a ragfish, geoducks, sea cucumbers, and glowing, mating worms. And because he reads plenty, he knows these creatures well enough to perform the cheeky but harmless art of revenge of placing a sea cucumber in his friend's arms so that it vomits its internal organs onto the poor fellow's head. Change is rife in Miles' life. He's on the brink of a growth spurt, he's in love with his former babysitter and wonders if she'll ever feel the same way, and he's witnessing the crumbling of his parents' marriage. How do you know he wants his parents to stay together? After his parents realize how gifted he is, they want to reward him, but Miles asks only for them to stay together, even though in his boyish heart, he's always longed for a dog.
Miles is a huge fan of Rachel Carson, and after reading the passages that he quotes, I've become one too. Carson describes the oceans and its life in the language of a poet's dream. And as Miles says, she sums up "the entire history and role of the ocean in two sentences: 'In its mysterious past it encompasses all the dim origins of life and receives in the end, after, it may be, many transmutations, the dead husks of that same life. For all at last return to the sea - to Oceanus, the ocean river, like the ever-flowing stream of time, the beginning and the end.'"
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Wildlife, nature and the Environment
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