A staggering number of children are reported missing in the United States each year: over one million according to the US Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. There are an equally large number of children who have to cope with the loss of their sibling and the sense of survivor guilt that accompanies that kind of tragedy.

Contemporary young adult literature is at its best when the author isn’t afraid to put their teen characters in difficult situations. Think about Laurie Halse Anderson’s novels, or the work of A.S. King, Adam Silvera, and Ellen Hopkins. All of these novels talk about teens coping with abuse, their own sexuality, and the navigation through the difficulties of life as a teenager in today’s world. Martin Wilson’s newest young adult novel, We Now Return to Regular Life is another brave and important addition to the canon. The novel asks the question, what happens to siblings and close friends when an abducted child returns home?

Beth Walsh’s brother Sam has been missing for three years. She thought he was dead. His childhood friend Josh was the last one to see him alive. In the opening pages of the novel we learn that Sam has miraculously returned, setting off a maelstrom in the community that uproots the lives of everyone in Sam’s life, especially Beth and Josh. Told in alternating points of view, Josh and Beth recount how they cope with Sam’s re-entry into their lives just as they were beginning to move on from the tragedy. Josh says to Sam, “‘You can tell me stuff,’ I say. And I mean it. But I also hope he doesn’t want to tell me anything else.”