YA Book Tour- Arkansas

Next stop of the United States of YA tour is Arkansas with John Corey Whaley's Where Things Come Back.

The summer between Cullen Witter's junior and senior year becomes a life changing summer.  First, some guy claims to have seen a woodpecker thought to be extinct since the 1940s, and then his brother, Gabriel, disappears. Cullen is a mostly average teenage boy.  He is kind of a loner with one really great friend, Lucas, but really one great friend is sometimes all you need.  He has quite the active imagination, many times imagining zombie take overs of his town. He learns to deal with disappearance of his bother, who he is super close to, and how to deal other people's reaction to it, too.

Along with Cullen's story is the story of Benton Sage/ Cabot Searcy. Benton starts out as the main person in the parallel story but it morphs into a story about his college roommate Cabot. Benton starts as a missionary in Africa, where frankly I think he totally miss the point about doing God's work. He comes home a failure, and a disappoint to his family.  To try and redeem himself, he goes to college where he meets Cabot. The events of Benton's life have a profound influence on Cabot, which basically makes him a little crazy.

Honestly, this book was a little slightly strange one, and a little depressing at times.  I spent most of the book wondering exactly how the two stories were related, and when they did come together it was definitely on the weird side.  It felt like, at times, that I was playing a six degrees of separation of how the characters from both story lines were going to connect. This one was not my style, but not the worst book I have read.

Currently Reading:
Wake
by Lisa McMann