Loneliness In Where Things Come Back

According to a study conducted by the Designs for Health team, ¨Social media may give us the illusion of being connected to more people. As the seeds of loneliness and isolation grow, they not only affect our emotional and psychological health, but spring up into weeds of deteriorating physical health. Nearly 35 percent of all US adults over the age of 45, 80 percent of those under 18 years, and 40 percent of those over 65 years are reported as lonely.¨ Just like in the novels, readers want to connect with the character, they want to empathize and walk in their reality. Removing fictional literature would only further isolate people from connecting. In the novel, “Where Things Come Back,” by John Corey Whaley, he clearly establishes that even
Fiction helps readers empathize with characters and ultimately assists with the communication and coping process.
The novel follows two teen boys Benton and Cullen who feel isolated from their family and community due to traumatic events that changed them forever; even though they are around friends and family they struggle coping with pain and loneliness. In the novel Cullen says, “I wasn't thinking about missing him or pitying him or even about how angry I was at him. I was just standing there like some ass-hat, mouth half-open and eyes glued to one spot. (1.5)” Cullen isn’t all that sad or angry. He’s just struck by the fact that he has one less family member alive. He has no cousins now. In the novel the narrator says, “With that, his father left the room and Benton, anger boiling up from places he hadn't known existed, clenched his fists tightly and, for a few moments, forgot how to breathe. He wanted to get up, walk out, and pick up Susie at her house; continue with the plans he'd been excited about for weeks. But he couldn't. (6.34)” Benton will never feel at home amongst his peers if he's trying to live up to his father's expectations. Since everyone else is mean to Benton's
John Whaley explains that his novel is about pains of growing up in a small community, and the difficulty of finding your own path as a young adult. His purpose is to have the readers read his book because it would be very beneficial for them to read which they can discover a mirror of their own experience. Readers empathize with characters and ultimately assists with the communication and coping process. In the novel, Benton and Cullen struggle coping with the pain of feeling isolated from their family and community; therefore this book can majorly benefit readers. In the novel Cullen says, “Not only had my brother disappeared, but—and bear with me here—a part of my very being had gone with him. Stories about us could, from then on, be told from only one perspective. Memories could be told but not shared. (17.60)” Cullen feels as though his own identity has been stripped away from him now that Gabriel is gone. The brothers share all this history, and without Gabriel around, Cullen is the only person left to tell those stories and recall those memories. In the novel the narrator says, “Upon his return home and