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Also by John Corey Whaley:

Highly Illogical Behavior, May 2016
Hardcover / e-Book
Noggin, April 2014
Hardcover
Where Things Come Back, May 2011
Hardcover

Where Things Come Back
John Corey Whaley

Simon and Schuster
May 2011
On Sale: May 3, 2011
Featuring: Gabriel Witter; Cullen Witter
198 pages
ISBN: 1442413336
EAN: 9781442413337
Hardcover
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Young Adult

Just when seventeen-year-old Cullen Witter thinks he understands everything about his small and painfully dull Arkansas town, it all disappears. . . . In the summer before Cullen's senior year, a nominally-depressed birdwatcher named John Barling thinks he spots a species of woodpecker thought to be extinct since the 1940s in Lily, Arkansas. His rediscovery of the so-called Lazarus Woodpecker sparks a flurry of press and woodpecker-mania. Soon all the kids are getting woodpecker haircuts and everyone's eating "Lazarus burgers." But as absurd as the town's carnival atmosphere has become, nothing is more startling than the realization that Cullen’s sensitive, gifted fifteen-year-old brother Gabriel has suddenly and inexplicably disappeared. While Cullen navigates his way through a summer of finding and losing love, holding his fragile family together, and muddling his way into adulthood, a young missionary in Africa, who has lost his faith, is searching for any semblance of meaning wherever he can find it. As distant as the two stories seem at the start, they are thoughtfully woven ever closer together and through masterful plotting, brought face to face in a surprising and harrowing climax. Complex but truly extraordinary, tinged with melancholy and regret, comedy and absurdity, this novel finds wonder in the ordinary and emerges as ultimately hopeful. It's about a lot more than what Cullen calls, “that damn bird.” It’s about the dream of second chances.

Comments

1 comment posted.

Re: Where Things Come Back

This debut young adult novel takes a look at family dynamics and dysfunction through the eyes of an angst-filled teenager. The story twists and winds around through some rather adult situations, but the ending is a satisfying conclusion to a complicated tale.
(Sharon Galligar Chance 12:23pm December 1, 2011)