I requested The Falconer initially because I enjoy coming-of-age stories and live across the bridge from Manhattan. As a self-proclaimed "New Yorker", I related to Czapnik's sense of place very vividly, despite the fact that I wasn't a teenager in the early 1990s. Czapnik does a great job creating a protagonist with substance, one readers can relate to on a number of levels. Older adult readers may have forgotten they experienced a number of themes present in this novel: realizing you have feelings for your best friend, the struggle to figure out what to pursue after graduation, and overall identity crisis and development.