Where Things Come Back

I absolutely love this book. I had to buy it and read it again.

Bought as a gift. She loved it!

Where Things Come Back is a combination of two stories. The first one involves a boy named Cullen Witter who’s 17 and in his senior year of high school. He lives in the small town of Lily, Arkansas where things are pretty dull until suddenly things are not. Cullen’s cousin, Oslo, ends up overdosing and his brother Gabriel who’s 15 vanishes. However, instead of the town focusing on looking for Cullen’s brother, they become obsessed with looking for the extinct woodpecker Lazarus. This man John Barling apparently sighted it and the main focus of this very dull town becomes the bird. If anyone does happen to say something about Gabriel it’s just to apologize and feel bad for Cullen and his family, which he doesn’t appreciate. Things are just not going well for Cullen, but then you have the second story. This one is about a missionary in Africa, Benton Sage, who’s struggling with life and family and throughout the book both tales are told and somehow they end up being woven together.The way that these two story lines ended up intertwining is absolutely mind-blowing and I was definitely surprised because I never saw it coming. The two don’t end up merging together until the very end, but when they did I wasn’t disappointed and I felt like the whole built up and the wait was worth it. You have to have some patience to read this book because I found the beginning to be slow as well as the build up of characters, so it took awhile for me to be able to feel for the characters. However, when it did pick up I breezed through it. John Corey Whaley wrote this book beautifully and I think it’s pure genius. Even though I completed the book, I’m still thinking about it and it’s left an impact. Part of the ending is also left up in the air and you’re the one to decide how you want it to go which I enjoyed. It’s intense and refreshing and the end creeps up on you and just makes you question everything.On the other hand, I had some issues with this book, which is why I didn’t end up giving it five stars. When I was reading from Cullen’s point of view I realized that he would switch from talking in first person to talking in third person. I ended up getting really confused and questioning who was narrating at times because it made it more difficult to keep up with it. Also, since I had a hard time getting into the story and the characters in the first place, it was easier for me to get confused. Later on, when the story picked up I was able to move past the switching of tenses and realize the true depth of the story. It’s very moving and thought provoking and it’s interesting to see how Cullen deals with everything and his reactions. Another thing that I had to adjust to is how blunt and straightforward everything was told. For example, when Gabriel disappears it happens out of nowhere and it felt as if someone just woke you up by dumping water on your face. I also eventually moved past that too and ended up liking that aspect of it. You just have to push through the beginning because once you get past that you won’t want to put it down. I would recommend this to anyone who’s not looking for an ordinary contemporary because this definitely isn’t ordinary. I loved the writing style and I also loved how even though it was a contemporary, romance wasn’t a big aspect of it at all. Overall I was pleasantly surprised by this book and wouldn’t actually mind reading it again.

“Where Things Come Back” isn’t one of your stereotypical feel good young adult novels. Author, John Corey Whaley, grabs you right from the get go and throws you right to the wolves. On the very first page, seventeen year old Cullen Witter sees his first dead bodies, one of them being his cousin. Instead of feeling sadness, Cullen just feels numb, knowing deep inside that this was bound to happen eventually to his no good, junkie, older cousin. And the story doesn’t get any easier from there! Within a few chapters Cullen’s younger brother and role model, Gabriel, goes missing. At first everyone thinks it’s a mistake and he’ll just come waltzing back, but as the weeks drag on, Cullen, his parents, and his best friend, Lucas slowly start to go mad, they simply don’t know how to react. To make things worse, their small town is becoming notorious for the spotting of a once thought extinct woodpecker. People flock to find a glimpse of this bird, and it tears Cullen and his family apart that more people seemingly care about finding this stupid bird then they do his brother.Throughout the novel Cullen tries nearly everything to escape the hurt and bewilderment about the loss of his brother, he tries to escape in sex, in his brother’s room and music, in Lucas’ crazy kidnapping ideas but nothing works. It’s a gut-wrenching journey that the reader feels in the pit of his/her stomach as we wait eagerly to see how it all turns out. Whaley beautifully illustrates the character’s emotions, so much so, that sometimes we forget that we aren’t a character in this book. It is easy to get lost in this painful journey.The story is also made more interesting by the occasional side chapters by other minor characters. At first the purpose isn’t clear but as the story goes on they have an interesting way of being the missing puzzle pieces that help put together the larger picture.Overall, I think that this is a fantastic book for teenagers. It is engaging, addresses a plethora of issues: family problems, the loss of a sibling, teen sex, stereotypes, high school problems, etc. There is something that everyone can easily relate to. Even though the story is told through the eyes of a high school boy, girls would have no problems relating with many of his problems. The story was well written, kept the reader hanging, age appropriate (since basically anything goes with teenagers these days), and had a unique story pattern that kept the plot hurtling forward. I think that this was well deserving of the Printz award.

This is a wonderful story wonderfully written!

Loved it!

I love this book so much. It will take me a while to list all the things I liked about it, so I'll just mention one of them: I really loved the writing style. We follow two different stories that are connected but we don't really see the connection until the later half of the book. I'll admit it took a little time to get used to alternating between those stories but in the end they came together so easily yet so surprisingly and I found myself wondering why I didn't see that coming! I'll recommend this book to anyone and everyone

I tend to like books that pull you into the story and this one didn't seem to do much for me. The events were strung together in an odd way and didn't make sense in terms of plot. I found that the author tends to overuse the same adjectives and would probably benefit from a thesaurus. All in all I'm not impressed

Really like the story and the way it was written.The end really surprised me,didn't see it coming!