Where Things Come Back

"Seventeen-year-old Cullen's summer in Lily, Arkansas, is marked by his cousin's death by overdose, an alleged spotting of a woodpecker thought to be extinct, failed romances, and his younger brother's sudden disappearance."--Title page verso.

2014 National Book Award Finalist A Time Best YA Book of All Time (2021) Travis Coates has a good head…on someone else’s shoulders. A touching, hilarious “tour de force of imagination and empathy” (Booklist, starred review) from John Corey Whaley, author of the Printz and Morris Award–winning Where Things Come Back. Listen—Travis Coates was alive once and then he wasn’t. Now he’s alive again. Simple as that. The in between part is still a little fuzzy, but Travis can tell you that, at some point or another, his head got chopped off and shoved into a freezer in Denver, Colorado. Five years later, it was reattached to some other guy’s body, and well, here he is. Despite all logic, he’s still sixteen, but everything and everyone around him has changed. That includes his bedroom, his parents, his best friend, and his girlfriend. Or maybe she’s not his girlfriend anymore? That’s a bit fuzzy too. Looks like if the new Travis and the old Travis are ever going to find a way to exist together, there are going to be a few more scars. Oh well, you only live twice.

From a Printz and Morris Award-winning author comes a quirky story of coming-of-age, coming out, friendship, love...and agoraphobia. Sixteen-year-old Solomon has agoraphobia. He hasn't left his house in 3 years. Ambitious Lisa is desperate to get into a top-tier psychology program. And so when Lisa learns about Solomon, she decides to befriend him, cure him, and then write about it for her college application. To earn Solomon's trust, she introduces him to her boyfriend Clark, and starts to reveal her own secrets. But what started as an experiment leads to a real friendship, with all three growing close. But when the truth comes out, what erupts could destroy them all. Funny and heartwarming, Highly Illogical Behavior is a fascinating exploration of what makes us tick, and how the connections between us may be the most important things of all. “At a time when young adult literature is actively picking away at the stigma of mental illness, Whaley carves off a healthy chunk with style, sensitivity and humor. . . . ELECTRIFYING.”—The New York Times Book Review “Tender and funny.”—People Magazine, Summer's Best Books of 2016

"In the remarkable, bizarre, and heart-wrenching summer before Cullen Witter's senior year of high school, he is forced to examine everything he thinks he understands about his small and painfully dull Arkansas town. His cousin overdoses; his town becomes absurdly obsessed with the alleged reappearance of an extinct woodpecker; and most troubling of all, his sensitive, gifted fifteen-year-old brother, Gabriel, suddenly and inexplicably disappears. Meanwhile, the crisis of faith spawned by a young missionary's disillusion in Africa prompts a frantic search for meaning that has far-reaching consequences. As distant as the two stories initially seem, they are woven together through masterful plotting and merge in a surprising and harrowing climax. This extraordinary tale from a rare literary voice finds wonder in the ordinary and illuminates the hope of second chances."--Publisher's description.

The central plot of the story revolves around Cullen Witter, a teenage boy. He lives in a small town named Lily, in Arkansas. He does not have a very wide social area to move around in his small community. Since it is a very small community, nothing interesting takes place there. Cullen has a strong desire to leave that place and go somewhere else to begin his life somewhere else. He is looking for an exciting life. However, he is not sure what his future life is going to be like. One thing is sure that he does not want to spend the rest of his life in that small town of Lily. His parents happen to have spent their lives there, but he is different.

Agoraphobic sixteen-year-old Solomon has not left his house in three years, but Lisa is determined to change that--and to write a scholarship-winning essay based on the results.

Vol. 34 includes "Special tariff conference issue" Nov. 6, 1925.