Breathless

And the thing about panicking when you're forty feet under the ocean's surface is that you can drown, and you know you can drown. In fact, you can't breathe without your regulator even if you're not panicking. You're also not supposed to hold your breath, because there's pressure underwater. That means if you're not breathing out bubbles while the regulator is out, your chest might expand until it explodes. Beverly is in Hawaii, helping her uncle at his dive shop, learning how to dive and trying to lose weight and get a boyfriend. When Garth, an accomplished diver, shows an interest in her, Beverly is ecstatic, until it turns out Garth is only interested in one thing. Struggling with failing strength from her self-imposed starvation diet, Beverly finds herself in deep trouble when she has to fight Garth off underwater. Pam Withers is the author of Camp Wild, an Orca Currents novel for middle-school readers and the Take it to the Xtreme series of teen novels.