This was an intense one. You could feel the tension drip from the pages. Arizona is somewhat of a prodigy. She has excellent puzzle solving skills. After the death of her father, Arizona and her Mom go on a  road trip of sorts to spread the ashes of her father. When her mom fails to meet her at the time specified,  Arizona uses her brain to do a quick methodical search. When her search yields nothing, she turns to a park ranger for help. As it turns out, the "ranger" was an imposter. With her Mom kidnapped, Arizona must solve puzzles, riddles and ciphers to locate what the kidnappers desire. This book gave me Goonies, Indiana Jones, and National Treasure vibes. Arizona is one smart seventeen year old.

4 stars

Thank you to Ballentine / Random House for the ARC.

2.5 stars, rounded up. This YA thriller will be the right book for the right reader, I am sure. Unfortunately, I personally just wasn't that interested in this plot, which centers around an intelligent teenager solving a series of coded puzzles to rescue her mother from dangerous kidnappers. The codes and Arizona's working of them go on for pages and pages, along with lots of discussion of alchemy. I found myself skipping ahead to get back to the plot far too often. Arizona is prickly but easy to root for, and the story wraps up in a satisfying way. The author is definitely smart and crafts the story well, but ultimately this was a miss for me. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine | Ballantine Books for a digital review copy.

Do you like to solve puzzles and cryptography? You should enjoy The Language of the Birds - the debut novel from K. A. Merson.

"Arizona and her Mom have taken a roadtrip in the family Airstream after the sudden death of her father. At the ghost-town of Bodie, Arizona heads off alone with her dog, Mojo. When she returns there is no sign of her Mom and the Airstream is trashed. She gets a phone call from a man threatening to harm Arizona's mom unless she does exactly what he tells her. So now, Arizona works on breaking ciphers and codes to find whatever the man wants and get her mother back."

Arizona is a character with some social challenges. But she is good with puzzles and codes. And there is a lot of detail on code-breaking in this book - a lot of detail. After a couple of times I skimmed those parts. If code-breaking is your thing you will probably love that much detail. There did seem to be some big logic jumps to get to the right sequences and words. There's a definite "National Treasure" vibe especially when you see the direction that Merson takes. Merson does have a couple of desptions so you're never quite sure who the bad guys really are. And the ending is a little ambiguous but it works that way.

Interesting debut from Merson.

If you love a quirky neurodivergent female main character and puzzles to solve then this is the book for you! Fast paced mystery, enjoyable read.

Arizona is not your typical 17 year old. She loves puzzles and her parents and her dog Mojo. She hates fluorescent lights, too much noise, and being touched. For the last couple years she's been home-schooled and her family has spent the majority of their time traveling. The story begins a couple weeks after Arizona's father died in a motorcycle crash. She and her mother are devastated and take a trip to scatter his ashes in one of his favorite places. On the trip they get separated and Arizona's mom disappears.

A few hours later Arizona receives a call from a blocked number, the caller claims to have her mother and wants Arizona to solve some cryptic clues to get her back. Feeling like she has no choice, Arizona begins to solve clue after clue. When she realizes what kind of treasure the kidnappers are really after, she has to decide who to trust and what kind of power she's willing to discover for a group that would kidnap someone to get what they want.

The story line itself was intriguing and Arizona's character was believable. The treasure hunt had enough truth mixed in to be plausible as well. My problem with this book is that the puzzles were just too much. They were so complex that, instead of enjoying solving them with the characters, I found myself just jumping over them and the process to read Arizona's solutions. In truth, though, I'm not particularly mathematically inclined. If you love math, you might enjoy solving the ciphers with Arizona!

3 stars - it's a solid and believable mystery and characters with just a little too much complicated math for my taste.

Disclaimer: I received a free electronic copy of this book from the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

3.25 stars

Thank you Random House for an ARC!

I enjoyed this but it is very YA and just not realistic at all. I had to suspend my disbelief for a LOT that happens in this. Still a fun thriller with a lot of Da Vinci Code/National Treasure type of puzzle solving in order for the main character, Arizona, to save her mom.

I like a good mystery and even like a good puzzle occasionally. But I’m just not the right reader for this book. I think it will resonate with the right people.

I was interested to read this because I haven’t read a YA book in quite a while. I can see that this would be a fasting read for a teen. It starts with a mystery: her mother is missing. Through the use of puzzles and riddles, cryptography, too, the mystery is solved!

This will make the perfect Christmas gift for young adults on my list.

In the wake of her father's death, her mom goes missing. The average 17-year-old wouldn't know what to do, but Arizona is not your average teen. She's neurodivergent and adept at puzzles and ciphers, with a vast knowledge base and the ability to drive a truck towing an airstream camper and a motorcycle with a sidecar. Cool kid, indeed!

The Language of the Birds is a tricky book to categorize. The plot feels YA, but the exquisite vocabulary and detailed ciphers would be too challenging for the average YA reader. I have been reading the National Park Mystery series with my daughter, and this feels like the adult version of those books.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, but I did find myself skimming some of the cipher-breaking sections to get back to the plot. The author's masterful use of language was appreciated.

This may sound like a sweet nature book, but it starts with grief. Arizona and her mom are driving along the Sierra mountain range, spreading her father‘s ashes at all his favourite places. But when they stop at a ghost town and separate to process their emotions independently before deciding on a spot to put this bit of ashes, Mom vanishes. Very quickly we are in a tense and puzzling series of events.

None of this is to say that the language is not of birds and nature. Interwoven our descriptions of trees and an encounter with a raven, details of sky and land, even pink flamingos...the lawn kind, not the live kind.

Arizona is an interesting protagonist although she won't be to everyone's taste at first. At 17, she has been home-schooled, or rather trailer schooled, for the past three years, cruising up and down the Sierras with her parents. She’s coded neurodivergent, very focused on numbers, tangent sets, combining elements, and memorizing poems to calm herself when triggered. Which, under the circumstances in which she very soon finds herself, would be highly understandable.

Soon we are getting deep into ciphers and American history and Lewis Carroll/other classic literature quotes. The chapters alternate between Arizona, her mom, and occasionally the bad guys being cryptic just for the sake of being cryptic. I’m not a fan of this latter technique. It seems to be like cheating rather than intensifying the protagonist's feelings of suspense and danger.

After the first time, the descriptions of solving various ciphers go on a bit long. They only ever lead to the next complex clue, and it takes a long time to get any idea of where the quest is leading. Some readers will absolutely love the digressions into alchemy, philosophy, and other byways of thought and cartography; for others they'll be all distractions from the central action.

Meanwhile, however, Arizona - or AZ, as her first new friend calls her fondly - is proving herself competent at navigating the world with only her dog for company, and surprising herself (and pleasing this reader) by easing out of her discomfort zone around other people to the point where she can sometimes initiate conversations without panicking and freezing. Her growth beyond the early limits imposed by her neurodivergence and other 'conditions' is one of the chief charms of this book.

Thanks #NetGalley #TheLanguageOfBirds #KAMerson

This is the kind of book I didn’t love but imagine others will. It’s well written and intriguing. I thought the protagonist was a bit unrealistic and maybe a little too “neurodivergent trope-y” but that’s not fair to say, since that’s based solely on my own mental state. I do think this will find an audience and would absolutely read something else by the author.

Arizona is a teenager who loves puzzles, number patterns and solving problems. These skills are put to the test when her mother is kidnapped and to save her, Arizona must pick up on a trail left by her recently deceased, perhaps murdered, father.
On a surface level, I enjoyed reading this book. Arizona is an interesting character and I found myself pulling for her right away and I was pulled into the story. On the other hand, the puzzles she faced were incredibly cryptic and complicated, although she could solve most at the drop of the hat because of her absolute knowledge of mathematics and literature. The motivation and background of the antagonists are not well developed or explained and the reader is left just to accept that they are the bad guys. Four stars for the protagonist and concept, but three stars overall for the rest of the characters and execution of the plot.
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

While this book is interesting, the overload of information about the numerous puzzles Arizona has to solve and how she goes about it can be overwhelming if your brain is not good at comprehending such things. Arizona is an admirable character in her tenacity and bravery, especially in the face of her difficulty in dealing with other people, as she clearly seems to have some form of autism. This makes the friendship she forms with Lily, a girl she meets in her travels, all the more touching. She also has a sweet relationship with her dog, her constant companion and emotional support provider. If you love word puzzles, like cryptograms, and are good at solving them, you may like this book. However, if you are not as much into that sort of thing, you may not enjoy it as much.

I was interested in this book because of the mystery aspect, but found that I wasn't as into the riddles and couldn't get into the story. I think I wasn't the right reader for this one.

Thank you Netgalley & Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine | Ballantine Books for the advanced reader copy.

Arizona is seventeen year old with a prodigious mind for puzzles. And after the accidental death of her father, Arizona will have to push her brain to the limits to figure out what her dad died for and how to get her kidnapped mother back. Along with her dog, Mojo, and a friend that she’s learning to allow into her life, Arizona ventures throughout the southwestern United States on a treasure hunt for a hidden secret. Puzzles, cryptic messages, and the involvement of a former U.S. president will have readers following the clues along with Arizona.

I really enjoyed the protagonist of this story. Arizona is independent, smart, and wary of those around her. The puzzles she solves are complex and inventive. A couple of downfalls of the story for me were the repetition of the poems/clues too many times, and the resolution of the mystery left something to be desired. The pacing was great though, and the ingenuity of the storyline was complicated and fun. A good read for those who enjoy mysteries, puzzles, and conspiracies.

I was completely hooked by The Language of the Birds by K.A. Merson. As someone who loves puzzle books and smart, suspenseful mysteries, this story was everything I hoped for. I had so much fun piecing together the clues and following the evidence right alongside the protagonist, trying to solve the mystery before the final reveal. It was immersive, clever, and full of twists. I honestly couldn’t put it down.

I thought this was a well thought out story. I liked Arizona and how smart she was. Her ability to do puzzles and ciphers were amazing. I know there are people out there just like her. I did think at times the puzzles made the story drag a little and made my eyes glaze over. It was an interesting story.

While I like the idea of this book, and thought it was a fun adventure book. I wasnt sure if the intended audience was YA or adult? The puzzle aspect and clue finding was fun, but I felt like the clues were too conveniently solved in a rather quick manner, the main character just by chance having the skill set and background knowledge to know exactly what to do.

This book has a really strong and well-done mystery element. The “villains” in this story feel very grounded and the stakes feel both real and immediate. The main character is interesting and really fits the story. She is heavily coded to be neurodivergent, and makes some reference to this fact, but I do wish that it was explored more thoroughly in the story. The mystery in this book relies heavily of codes and ciphers, and at times the descriptions of these felt overwhelming and gratuitous, but they were smart and I never felt cheated by any of the clues. I also found the ending slightly disappointing, but that’s more so because of my personal tastes. Overall, this book was very good and I highly recommend it.

3.25 out of 5 stars

17-year-old Arizona has just lost her father to a tragic motorcycle accident. Along with her mother, she is travelling to places her father loved to scatter his ashes. The first place, Bodie, is a ghost town and her mother chooses to go on a stamp-mill tour while Arizona walks her dog, Mojo. But when her mother fails to show up at the scheduled time at the scheduled meeting place, Arizona gathers up her courage to talk to a stranger - a ranger - to alert someone.
The first ranger she talks to tells her to give her mom a while longer. Arizona walks around town (in a very methodical manner) looking for her mom. When she fails to find her again, she goes back to the meeting place and finds another ranger who gives his name as Stephen Gordon, takes her phone number, and promises to call her if her mother shows up.
Out of options, Arizona goes back to their camper and eventually falls asleep. When she wakes up the next morning, she goes to the ranger station where the head ranger, Sam Yeats, tells her they have no Stephen Gordon. When Sam shows Arizona pictures of their rangers, she recognizes the first ranger she spoke with, but does not see Stephen Gordon.
Sam takes her information, and promises to look into the phantom ranger as well as send out a search for her mother.

When Sam gets back to her camper, she finds it tossed, and a note telling her that her father didn't have to die, and that "they" had her mother, and it was up to Arizona to crack a cipher to save her mother. When she cracks the cipher, though, she is given another, and another, and suddenly finds herself in a wild chase to find a solution to an alchemical mystery for someone known as The Adept.

Along the way, Arizona makes some friends, which is a first for her. She meets Marty while diving off the California coast looking for a geological survey marker on an island held by the US Navy, and she meets Lily at a campground near Carson City, who has a dog named Gus, and doesn't let Arizona lose herself in her own hear.

The concept of this book is intriguing - scavenger-hunt, alchemy, US Presidential history, puzzles, ciphers. The author did a scray good job creating the mysteries and connections to make this book make sense.

The problem with this debut novel revealed itself slowly but surely as I found that I could not find personality in any of the characters other than Arizona and maybe Marty. The villain, The Adept, was vague at best and flaccid at worst. The mother felt as much as a ghost as the dead father. The kidnappers and the rangers were confusing. What should have been the easiest character to develop, Lily, because of all the interactions between Lily and Arizona, should have at least garnered if not the ability to identify with her, at least the feeling that she made a difference in the story, failed to develop.

I felt as though Lily could have been taken out of the story and it wouldn't have made a difference. Who was Lily? We learn very little about her, and she could just as easily be a figment of Arizona's imagination as a flesh-and-blood human.

The book was good. The mysteries and connections were brilliant. But the book could have been great - better than great - if the author had spent as much time on the character development as she did on putting the clues and connections together. Still, I would definitely pick up more by this autho in the future.