"Where Things Come Back" by John Corey Whaley

228 pages

Life is pretty routine for seventeen-year-old Cullen Witter. There's not a lot of excitement in tiny Lily, Arkansas, (population 3,000 and change) but Cullen has his best friend, Lucas, and his fifteen-year-old brother, Gabriel, to pass the time with until he can graduate and get the heck out of town. Suddenly, Lily is uncharacteristically thrust into the spotlight when a visiting birdwatcher claims to have spotted the Lazarus Woodpecker, thought to be extinct since the 1940s, near the small town. Before long, kids are getting woodpecker haircuts and the local diner is selling "Lazarus burgers." As all of this craziness is going on, Gabriel suddenly disappears without a trace. Cullen is left trying to hold his family together as they search for the truth.

Meanwhile, in Georgia and on the other side of the world, a young missionary named Benton struggles to find his place in the world and deal with his strict father's unreasonable expectations. His story is told parallel to Cullen's until they come together near the end of the book in a thrilling conclusion, where the truth about Gabriel--and about the woodpecker--finally comes out.

I really love this book. It's not often that I have no complaints at all, but my only one for "Where Things Come Back" is that it's too short...not because there's anything left unexplained or the pacing is too quick but because I didn't want to finish it! First of all, Cullen's voice grabbed me right away. He's just plain funny in an intelligent but goofy kind of way, and I can totally relate to him since I grew up in a tiny town (even smaller than Lily!) in southwest Missouri and didn't feel like I fit in there. I also like how the story goes back and forth between Cullen and Benton. At first, I had no clue how the two storylines were going to come together, and I had fun guessing what was going to happen as I read. The contrast between the humor within Cullen's narration and the shocking disappearance of his brother is interesting, and I like it because that's how real life is. There are a lot of really hilarious moments and plenty of anxious and heartbreaking ones as well, and sometimes they even overlap a little bit. Anyway, the story becomes quite thrilling after Gabriel's disappearance, and the suspense builds until, literally, the last page. Wrap all of this up and you have a pretty amazing story. It got me thinking about all kinds of things: the role of destiny; how to hold on to hope, and what that means; the beauty in ordinary things; how seemingly small actions or events can cause something big (the butterfly effect, if you will). This is Whaley's first book, so hopefully there will be more to look forward to, and it's just been announced that the movie rights for "Where Things Come Back" have been purchased by Gotham Group.