John Corey Whaley writes young-adult fiction about grief, isolation and teenagers confronting situations that make ordinary adolescence impossible. Where Things Come Back alternates between a boy’s missing brother in a small Arkansas town and seemingly unrelated stories that gradually converge. Noggin begins with Travis Coates waking years after his head was cryogenically preserved and transplanted onto another body, forcing him to discover that everyone he knew has continued living without him. Highly Illogical Behavior centres on an agoraphobic teenager and the ambitious classmate who enters his life partly for her own reasons. Whaley’s prose is funny, accessible and emotionally direct, even when the premise is speculative. His work sits within contemporary YA, grief fiction and unusual coming-of-age. Noggin is the clearest speculative entry; Where Things Come Back is more literary and structurally layered. Read more Less
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