Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley

Reviewed by Jennifer

Ratings

Content Ratings based on a 0-5 scale where
0 = no objectionable content and
5 = an excessive or disturbing level of content

Guide to Rating System

LANGUAGE

VIOLENCE

SEXUAL CONTENT

ADULT THEMES

2012 Michael L. Printz Award Winner

2012 William C. Morris Debut Award Winner

Ratings Explanation

Language: About 135 instances of swearing and 1 F-word. Also a few crude words (slut, fag, douche bag, queer).

Violence: Cullen imagines killing zombies. One teenage boy hits another teenage boy in the face. A boy punches a grown man and the man punches him back.

Sexual Content: There is some sexual activity in the book, but almost no details are given. A few kisses are exchanged. A 17-year-old boy and a not quite divorced 19-year-old girl sleep together. Her mother discovers him in her daughter’s bed and she just vacuums around the bed. The same boy sleeps with another girl, but this time when he wakes up he has to sneak out the window so he won’t be caught by her parents. Cullen states that he had an “R-rated” experience with a girl in which they lay naked next to each other.  A few references to sex including statements about having sex or wanting to have sex.

Adult Themes: Cullen identifies the corpse of his cousin who died from a drug overdose. The store where Cullen works sells condoms. A man leaves his wife and two children and is “shacked up” with another woman. A boy tries to please his exacting father, but never seems to be able to make him proud. The boy feels misled by God, abandoned by his family and eventually takes his own life. A 15-year-old boy disappears. It is assumed that he has been abducted or is dead. His family must deal with not knowing what has become of him. Lucas asks Fulton if he was in love with Gabriel (insinuating a homosexual desire). An unmarried man and woman live together, she becomes pregnant but looses the baby. Religious fanaticism.

Synopsis

Cullen Witter lives in Lily, Arkansas, a small, sleepy town where nothing ever happens and a place teenagers dream of seeing in the rear view mirror . But that all changes the summer before Cullen’s senior year when the Lazarus woodpecker, long believed extinct, makes an alleged reappearance in Lily. Tourists and birdwatchers descend on Lily and the town becomes obsessed with all things Lazarus. Lazarus haircuts, Lazarus burgers and $20 tours down the river to try and spot the elusive bird. But then something even stranger than a resurrected woodpecker happens in Lily. Cullen’s favorite person in the world, his sensitive, smart 15-year-old brother, Gabriel, disappears. No clue, no trace, no note, no call – nothing, vanished.

In a seemingly unrelated story, 18-year-old Benton Sage travels to Ethiopia as a Christian missionary. He finds his work there unfulfilling and asks for permission to come home. Met with disdain by his father for his presumed failure, Benton goes off to college where he makes one friend, his roommate Cabot Searcy. On Christmas day when Benton is alone, he contemplates his life and makes a decision that will have further reaching implications than he could have ever forseen.

As the story shifts and develops, the two narratives intertwine, culminating in the idea that maybe Lily is a place where things come back and a place where, as Gabriel says, “We all get a second chance, you know?”

I really liked this book. There is so much to say and think about after reading Where Things Come Back, that I don’t know where to start or what to leave out. “Watching” a family deal with the inexplicable disappearance of their brother and son is my worst nightmare. Cullen’s family tries everything to find Gabriel, but when the weeks pile up and there is still no trace of him, they have to try to live a normal life, but what is normal when part of your family is missing?

The relationships in Where Things Come Back are rich. I especially love the relationship between Cullen and his best friend Lukas. Lukas is taller, better looking, smarter and more thoughtful of others than Cullen. He always smiles at the pretty girls and says something nice to the not-so-pretty ones too.  At one point Cullen wonders why Lukas is even his friend. It seems that Lukas is always helping and rescuing Cullen and Cullen begins to think he doesn’t have much to offer Lukas.

Cullen asks Lukas, “Why are you my friend?”

“That’s a stupid question.”

“Why? Because there’s no answer?”

“No because that’s like asking why people stretch when they wake up or jump when they’re scared,” he said sternly.

“Huh?”

“These things just happen, Cullen. You just are my friend. That’s that. No explanation needed.”

“So, you’re my friend just because you’re my friend?” I laughed.

“That’s right. I just am. It’s the simplest thing in the world.”

The idea of second chances is also a theme through the book. We all get them, but what do we do with them? Cullen’s doctor tells him that there will always be struggles in life. Some people will handle them well and some won’t. There will be false hopes, people to lead us astray and people through whom we can see that maybe we are doing things right after all, but ultimately being given a second chance is a gift not to be squandered.

I enjoyed John Corey Whaley’s writing style. I felt like he really captured the voice of Cullen as the teenage narrator. Cullen is trying to find himself and plan a future when the present is completely volatile. He portrayed the belligerence of youth, the anger of injustice, and the insecurity of a teenager in love perfectly.

This book is listed for ages 14 and up on Amazon. I think this is a little young for the content, I would lean more toward age 16 and up.