Whaley, J.C. (2011). Where Things Come Back. New York, NY. Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division.
Cullen Witter is a teenager that lives in Lily, Arkansas. He lives with his younger brother Gilbert Witter and his parents. Cullen Witter was surrounded by death at such a young age. First his cousin, Olso died. Then other high school classmates also died. However, death hit very close to home when his young brother went missing. Cullen often wondered what happened to his brother and had a very vivid, gruesome imagination that included zombies. Cullen had to endure the loss of his brother as well as his love interest. Not realizing that his actions with one of those love interests was the cause of losing his brother.
This novel is realistic fiction and mystery fiction too. The novel includes many events that could actually take place in real life. The issues that some young adults face during their coming of age like, suicide, their sexuality, love interests and problems with their partners. Other real life events include death and issues that come with losing a loved one. Like Cullen's mother's mental health. The novel also contains mystery characteristics. This happens when everyone in town is looking for the elusive Lazarus Woodpecker and trying to find out what happened to Gilbert Witter. The strength of the novel is the vivid description of the settings, explanations of each character's part and the characters' connections that are connected at the end of the novel. The weakness of the novel is how some characters have their own chapters. As I began to read the novel, I was a little confused as to why chapter 1 and chapter 2 had different characters. However, as I kept reading I figured that at the end all the characters had a relationship to one another.
Review excerpt (SLJ)
https://www.slj.com/review/where-things-come-back
No comments:
Post a Comment