Desert Echoes
Abdi Nazemian
HarperCollins
Published September 10, 2024
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About Desert Echoes
From Abdi Nazemian, the award-winning author of Like a Love Story and Only This Beautiful Moment, comes a suspenseful contemporary YA novel about loss and love.
Fifteen-year-old Kam is head over heels for Ash, the boy who swept him off his feet. But his family and best friend, Bodie, are worried. Something seems off about Ash. He also has a habit of disappearing, at times for days. When Ash asks Kam to join him on a trip to Joshua Tree, the two of them walk off into the sunset . . . but only Kam returns.
Two years later, Kam is still left with a hole in his heart and too many unanswered questions. So it feels like fate when a school trip takes him back to Joshua Tree. On the trip, Kam wants to find closure about what happened to Ash but instead finds himself in danger of facing a similar fate. In the desert, Kam must reckon with the truth of his past relationship—and the possibility of opening himself up to love once again.
Desert Echoes is a propulsive, moving story about human resilience and connection.
My Review
I think I have at least one other of Nazemian’s books, but this is the first one that I’ve read. The writing and characters are so compelling in this book. I usually have a really hard time with long chapters, but I couldn’t stop reading this one, even though it only has about nine chapters which are each somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 pages long.
The story follows two different timelines: the present, in which Kam faces a return trip to Joshua Tree, the park where he last saw his boyfriend Ash, and the early days of Kam’s relationship with Ash two years earlier leading up to Ash’s disappearance.
Because the chapters are long, there aren’t a lot of transitions back and forth between these two timelines. This helped keep me immersed in each storyline and meant that I was going to get a lot more information every time I switched to a new chapter. I liked that.
I’ve sometimes read books that show a reflection back to a lost loved one or relationship that didn’t last, and sometimes those stories leave so many unanswered questions that reading the book can feel unsatisfying. Desert Echoes does provide Kam some closure, though it’s not the information he expected to uncover. He does begin to process his feelings and see his life in a new way once he has the information he needs, and once that happens, other things that felt left in limbo in the story begin to shift into place.
It has the kind of ending that might feel too easy to some people, but readers looking for an uplifting ending will definitely appreciate the way that Nazemian closes Kam’s journey. The back of the book has a moving note from the author explaining his emotional connections to the story, too. It explains why he writes about these topics with so much authenticity.
On the whole, I enjoyed this book a lot, even though it’s a story of grief. I’m glad I read it, and I am excited to read more by Abdi Nazemian.
Content Notes
Recommended for Ages 14 up.
Representation
Several major characters are queer. Bodie, Kam, and their families are from Iran and recently moved to the United States from Canada.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
Some f-bombs and profanity used here and there. Some references to homophobic comments, particularly by Kam’s dad.
Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between two boys. Very brief descriptions of sexual contact in a couple of scenes.
Spiritual Content
None.
Violent Content
A character is missing, presumed dead. There’s some question as to whether this person died by suicide or an accident of some kind.
Drug Content
References to drug addiction. One scene shows a person with drugs and an intent to take them. Kam’s dad is an alcoholic and is frequently drunk when he’s in the house.
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