Chilling opening as 17-year old Arizona refuses to go on a tour at a ghost town with her mother but her mother doesn't show at their arranged meeting spot. While looking she sees a park ranger, Stephen, and asks for his assistance. He takes information but when she finally goes to the ranger station, she learns there is no park ranger named Stephen. And, then in the family Airstream at a nearby campground, she finds a note implying that her father's recent death was because he did not share information with the people who now have her mother. With the note is a puzzle for Arizona to solve to prove herself and to work toward her mother's release. What follows is a smart intense thriller with lots of challenging puzzles for Arizona and the reader.

A wonderfully developed lead character in Arizona (a neurodivergent 17 year old), an interesting plotline that will remind you of The Da Vinci Code, and not one, but two adorable dogs! Her Mom is kidnapped and she's told to decipher several puzzles in order to set her Mom free. What's not to like? Well, that would be all the ciphers and puzzles and poems, and whole chapters devoted to nothing but going over (and over and over) Arizona's calculations to find answers.

Also, none of the secondary characters evolved into real people. Her Mom, her new friend Lily, the bad guys, an acquaintance named Marty, all stayed very one dimensional. The calculations for solving the puzzles were way too detailed and repetitive, as Arizona goes over her computations again and again. And again. The poems containing clues for solving the puzzles are repeated over and over. And over. There were moments when I felt like I was back in high school, trying to get at least a C in Geometry.

Too bad, because if you skip all the chapters of drawing maps and connotations on the maps and configurations (as I did for the whole second half of the book) this was a quick fun read that takes you on an interesting journey, following Arizona and her boxer MoJo as they zip around on her motorcycle and sidecar on a mission to save her Mom.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC od The Language of the Birds.

The premise was so intriguing and I was excited my request was approved.

The problem is that the plot was too cipher and riddle-y for me. I'm not smart enough to follow along. 😅

Arizona is a smart, neurodivergent 17-year old who is skilled in ciphers and puzzle solving.

When her mom is kidnapped and the only way to secure her release is to decode a series of cryptic notes, Arizona, with her trusty dog at her side, embarks on an adventure that will lead to shocking revelations and new friends,

The narrative was too science-y and brainy for me to follow.

I appreciate the work and effort the author took to create the narrative.

I also loved how much of the story is based on real life documents and history. I didn't know much about Herbert Hoover other than that he was the president.

I didn't dislike Arizona; I appreciated her talents and skills and I loved her dog. I also liked how her mom wasn't a helpless victim; she sought ways to escape.

I understand solving the riddle also enabled Arizona to develop her verbal and communication skills and learn to socialize.

I prefer my mysteries more straightforward and with a lot less math.

A well done story with equal parts coming of age and discovery of secrets. Lead by clues that are brilliantly done and evenly paced. I enjoyed this book and would love it as a series!

I’ve enjoyed other novels where the protagonist has an uncanny ability to solve puzzles, but this book was really heavy on the puzzle solving and poems that needed to be dissected and short on character development.

Seventeen-year-old Arizona is still mourning the death of her father when her mother is kidnapped. She learns that the reason her mother was abducted is because of Arizona’s ability to solve riddles and ciphers. The kidnappers believe her father took a secret to his grave, and they want her to uncover it for them. With her dog at her side, she travels around, going through texts and American history, trying to unearth a string of mysteries and get her mother back safely.

NetGalley provided an advance copy of this novel, which RELEASES MAY 13, 2025.

I received this ebook as a widget so I wasn't sure what to expect but I am so glad that I read this book. It has me hooked from the beginning. I found so much fun with the mystery and puzzles in this book. For being 17. Arizona was such a strong capable character. I love that she obviously is neurodivergent. I enjoy reading stories that really help to connect and show the strength and resilience of neurodivergent individuals.

This book had so much to it, mystery, a secret society, death, a kidnapping, and finding out who Arizona truly was. I don't know if faced with the same dilemma if I could have handled it with the maturity and strength that Arizona did. I was also extremely impressed with Arizona's mother's ability to stay level headed and figure out who to deal with the kidnappers and trying to get away.

This book was fun. I feel like I learned things and was very invested in the mystery. I have so many new questions now too. I think I may have to take a deeper dive into alchemy and Herbert Hoover.

I highly recommend this book to everyone. I actually think I am going to may my husband read this one because I think he would be intrigued.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing - Ballentine Books for the ARC of this ebook. All opinions expressed are my own.

Arizona's not your typical teenager. She loves cryptology & geocaching. She has secretly enlisted in a treasure hunt. If she finds the answer, it could change the world. Can she find the answer & save her mother who was kidnapped?

Full Disclosure: I received an Advanced Reader's Copy of The Language of the Birds: A Novel by K.A. Merson from Ballantine Books via NetGalley.

The Language of the Birds: A Novel by K.A. Merson appealed to me just based on the title. I didn't really know much about it when I started to read and was delighted I did! This is a thriller about an incredibly intelligent young person who gets pulled into a dangerous venture to try to save her mom. To do so, she has to solve puzzles and essentially go on a scavenger hunt to get the next pieces. I loved that the puzzles were included so you could also try to solve them with her. I love a good puzzle! If you do too, you will want to check this book out.

Bonus points for Mojo! What a good dog!

I could not put this down, The young ,brilliant girl trying to save her kidnapped Mother after the death of her father has so many twists and turns.
She has led an isolated life without many friends and doesn't know who to trust. It is a story with lots of surprises and courage.

Reading this story was like looking at a large table with 5000 puzzle pieces scattered all over and desperately trying to make sense of it. Would it ever come together?

It takes a special person to figure out complex configurations with numbers, codes, cyphers and lines from notes and poems. I was trying to hang in there with a 17-year-old remarkable girl, Arizona, who had the task of deciphering a nearly-impossible secret from hidden markers.

She was highly motivated by a man who kidnapped her mother and demanded results from Arizona. If she wanted to see her mom again, she needed to solve the puzzle. Who could do something like this? Well, she was neurodivergent with a brain that was able to solve complex mathematical calculations in her head.

It wasn’t easy for me to follow the number sequencing and make sense of the ciphers. Yet, I admire the author’s amount of research and brilliance for setting up a wild obstacle course that Arizona had to complete. It was like watching a James Bond movie where he’s doing the impossible.

The setting made me want to follow along with travels to the rustic Bodie National State Park, the beautiful San Nicolas Island and the magnificent Hoover Dam in the SW. In the author notes, he includes a link to an interesting booklet on the Hoover Dam sculptures. It’s worth taking a look.

My thanks to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book with an expected release date of May 13, 2025.

In THE LANGUAGE OF BIRDS, written by K.A. Merson, Arizon’s father is dead and her mother goes missing. Arizona (a seventeen-year-old girl who appears to have a form of autism) is determined to find her kidnapped mother. Will Arizona be reunited with her mother? I read on to find out.

This book is a thriller written in present tense that I think is meant to appeal to both adults and young-adults. Arizona is an appealing protagonist. The interesting puzzles she must solve in order to find her mother are an interesting aspect of this book. The problem I have with this novel is that I don’t care enough about the mother. I need to care about her for me to appreciate what Arizona is going through to reunite with her. Thank you, Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine and NetGalley, for the chance to read and review an advance reader copy of THE.LANGUAGE OF THE BIRDS.

If you like puzzles than you will love this book! It will keep you thinking and piecing things together all throughout. Definitely enjoued

The Language of Birds is a what National Treasure would be if it were YA, more cerebral, and set in the West.

Arizona's father has recently died, and she and her mother are on a trip to scatter his ashes. But her mother's sudden kidnapping leaves Arizona puzzled--until she finds a note declaring that her mother's life depends on Arizona's ability to solve a set of ciphers. Brilliant Arizona sets off to solve the puzzles and discover ancient secrets and save her mother, encountering danger, sorrow, and friendship along the way.

Arizona is an interesting main character. She's neurodivergent and absolutely brilliant; she loves solving puzzles and forgets nothing. Her leaps of logic to solve the ciphers are amazing, and readers are lucky that Merson includes diagrams, charts, maps, and whatever else is needed to help explain Arizona's thought process because they aren't easy to follow. Honestly, I sometimes skimmed the written explanation and used the schematics to make sense of things, so I'm especially glad those were included. Outside of her amazing puzzle-solving skills, Arizona is heartbroken over the loss of her father and scared for her mother. She's a unique seventeen year old girl that is struggling with the typical teenage problems in addition to these tragedies, and Merson does a great job of showing how Arizona deals with her emotions.

As much development as Arizona gets, though, there's less for the other characters. The villains are a bit lackluster, Arizona's mom doesn't have much depth, and even Lily, the friend Arizona makes during her quest, could have been fleshed out more. Since we get POV chapters from both the Big Bad and Arizona's mom, it would've been easy enough to give them more depth, but the story didn't suffer too much without it, and I understand that the mystery was the main point of the story.

And what a mystery it was! Arizona is following historical clues scattered throughout ghost towns, national parks, and military-restricted islands to find the truth behind alchemy. Throw in a translation by Herbert Hoover (yes, that Herbert Hoover, and yes, some of the work is real) and allusions to many famous works of literature as well as sneaking about and some chase scenes, and this is really a recipe for brainy fun. The ending is ambiguous, which is fine, but I wanted some definitive answers! Nonetheless, Birds is a fun read that will keep readers' brains working overtime.

This book’s storyline was not quite what I expected and it seems like it should be categorized as a YA novel. There is a lot (almost too much) focus on the puzzles. I’m sure there will be some who really like this book, but it just wasn’t for me.

Thanks to Netgalley and RHPG Ballantine for the pre-release copy of The Language of the Birds by K.A. Merson. Below you'll find my honest review.

I'm gonna be honest - I love a good treasure hunt story. National Treasure? Yeah, saw it in theaters multiple times. Most of Dan Brown's novels, like Angels & Demons or The Da Vinci Code? Love. Indiana Jones? My favorite is the Last Crusade.

I absolutely adore the whole "let's solve puzzles and ciphers and riddles as we move along the hunt for a treasure or a place" trope. And this one did it so well!

Firmly in the YA genre, this one has the young MC follow a trail of ciphers and clues at the demand of some baddies who have kidnapped her mom. She's definitely a unique heroine, as she falls on the spectrum of autism/neurodivergence. As someone who is also neurodivergent, it was refreshing to see a character written so genuinely, who struggles with their differences as both a strength in some situations and a hindrance in others, but begins to learn the ways she can interact with the world on her own terms.

As far as the puzzles go, they were so much fun! The ciphers were interesting to read about, and we get to see Arizona's process documented as she thinks through and solves them. There are also plenty of visual references, which were amazingly helpful. And all the history of alchemy and Herbert Hoover was very cool to read about.

All in all, I absolutely adored this book. I will warn you - there's a bit of a scare with the dog, for those of you who need trigger warnings.

Highly recommended for fans of treasure hunts, YA, fun puzzle adventures with historical references, and neurodivergent representation. Five stars.

3.5 Stars
An adventurous YA mystery with a neurodivergent main character, her sidekick dog, and a puzzle infused quest, this novel is a good choice for younger sleuths who love math, puzzles, and localized history around the Hoover Dam area. While not Indiana Jones nor Robert Langdon (think more like Good Will Hunting or A Beautiful Mind), I did love this teenaged MC (and it's refreshing to see a neurodivergent female lead). The regional research for this book is impressive too.

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Arizona and her mom are traveling around the Sierra Nevadas and leaving behind her father's ashes at the places he loved the most. They stop at Bodie which is a ghost town and Arizona's mother never made it to their meeting place. After notifing the park ranger Stephen Grodan she heads back to their airstream to wait. The next day Arizona returns to the ghost town and talks to Sam Yates, she is the head the park rangers and tells Arizona that they will search all the building to see if she is still there. Arizona is then contacted by Stephen Gordan who informs her that they have her mother and they need Arizona to decode cyphers on order to get the next clue., luckily for them Arizona loves puzzles and is up for this challange, With the help of her trusty sidekick Mojo they set off on an adventure. Thie Language of Birds is a book like no other and will keep the reader on their toes until the very end. I would like to thank both NetGalley and Ballantine Books for letting read an advanced copy of this novel.

The Language of the Birds is a thrilling blend of mystery and adventure! It’s got themes of grief, friendship, personal growth, and is sure to keep you glued to its pages.

I loved the unique writing style employed in this story. Not only is Arizona a compelling main character, but the writing made me feel like I was experiencing the inner workings of her thoughts as she solved problem after problem. She shows so much growth throughout the story, exemplified most in her friendship with Lily and in her willingness to do whatever it takes to get her mother back, going outside her defined comfort zones. Arizona’s relationship with Mojo was a huge bonus, as I’m a boxer lover myself.

I often found it difficult to follow along with Arizona’s thought-process in solving the many puzzles, but I still enjoyed seeing her rationale and the history behind her solutions. As a big history, literature, and puzzle fan, this story had all the elements to deliver a narrative that kept me engaged from start to finish. If you love The DaVinci Code, National Treasure, or Nancy Drew, this story is perfect for you!

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

“The Language of the Birds” is by K. A. Merson. I like puzzles and I like reading how people solve said puzzles, but, for me, there was a LOT of description about solving the puzzles, which might appeal to those really into puzzles, but I found a bit tedious after, well, the second puzzle was solved. There was history, which I liked, but it seemed that between the puzzle solving and the history, there wasn’t a lot much more. I strongly believe this book is more for young adult or new adult because there wasn’t a lot of character development. I think this book had a lot of potential, but for me it felt like the author was trying to be too smart about the puzzles to appeal to a general audience.

I really enjoyed this book and if you’re looking for a mashup of National Treasure and The DaVinci code with a female lead, you probably will too.

Arizona’s mother has been abducted and it’s up to her, along with her best friend with paws, Mojo, to track her down. Her mother’s captors leave behind clues in the form of head-scratching puzzles, riddles, and cyphers, and blame the ordeal on her late father’s involvement with the shadowy group.

Arizona’s quest to save her mother introduces her to interesting characters and helps her to learn more about herself, while also teaching her more about the intricacies of grief.

The only gripe I have was finding that I didn’t like the chapters from Arizona’s mother’s perspective felt a bit forced - her personality and internal dialogue seemed more like that of a teenager. Her communication with the captors also seemed highly unrealistic in terms of the what information was revealed. With that said, I had a great time reading THE LANGUAGE OF THE BIRDS and I’m looking forward to reading more from K. A. Merson.

Rating 3.5/5

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.