If Birds Fly Back

Gr 9 Up—In this charming novel about love and missing persons, two quirky teenagers embark on personal quests but end up finding each other. Linny, whose older sister Grace slipped out one night and disappeared, spends her days chronicling famous cases of people who vanished and then came back. When she starts a summer volunteer job at a retirement community, Linny spots a well-known writer who famously disappeared three years ago and was presumed dead. Seventeen-year-old Sebastian, who's about to head to Caltech, detours to Miami Beach when he hears that the father he's never known may be there. As it turns out, Linny's writer and Sebastian's father are the same man, the enigmatic Álvaro Herrera. Linny and Sebastian bond over the respective holes in their lives, all the while pursuing Álvaro for his secrets. The romance between the two bright, mildly troubled main characters—told from both points of view, in alternating chapters—will hook fans of John Green, Sarah Dessen, and Jenny Han. Interspersed throughout, and sometimes too distracting, are details about Linny's missing persons, scenes from the screenplay she's writing about her sister, and Sebastian's thoughts on physics and philosophy. While the plot's central mysteries are perhaps too easily resolved, it's really the story of two sweet and likable teens finding love that makes this novel so appealing.