In a small town in North Carolina, a couple gets a not-unexpected knock on the door from a government agent with a small boy in tow – the couple’s fifty-years-dead son. He, along with hundreds of other Returned people, has come back just as he was before his death and with no apparent memory of being gone. As the Returned increase in number, the rest of the world struggles to figure out who the Returned really are, why they’ve come back, and what to do with them.
I love how Mott takes a question everyone has asked themselves – what would you do if you had one more chance to be with a person you had lost? – and takes it to this extreme place that is frightening and thoughtful all at once. I found myself agreeing with or at least understanding every character, “good guys” and “bad guys” alike, and wondering which character I would end up most like in this situation. I still don’t know! Recommended for people who want a book they’ll be thinking about for weeks after finishing it.
--Alison McCarty, Callahan Branch Library
Find The Returned in the Nassau County Public Library System catalog.
I love how Mott takes a question everyone has asked themselves – what would you do if you had one more chance to be with a person you had lost? – and takes it to this extreme place that is frightening and thoughtful all at once. I found myself agreeing with or at least understanding every character, “good guys” and “bad guys” alike, and wondering which character I would end up most like in this situation. I still don’t know! Recommended for people who want a book they’ll be thinking about for weeks after finishing it.
--Alison McCarty, Callahan Branch Library
Find The Returned in the Nassau County Public Library System catalog.