Where Things Come Back

by John Corey Whaley

4 of 5 stars 5 ratings • 3 reviews • 9 shelved
Book cover for Where Things Come Back

Bookhype may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. Full disclosure.

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 junior year, a nominally-depressed birdwatcher named John Barling thinks he spots the ivory-billed woodpecker--a species 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.
  • ISBN10 1442413344
  • ISBN13 9781442413344
  • Publish Date 24 July 2012 (first published 3 May 2011)
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country US
  • Publisher Simon & Schuster
  • Imprint Atheneum Books for Young Readers
  • Edition Reprint ed.
  • Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
  • Pages 272
  • Language English