Chasing Windmills

CHASING WINDMILLS is saved from being a conventional love story by its two unconventional lovers. Sebastian is an isolated teenager just beginning to venture into the adult world. Maria is a young mother trapped in an abusive relationship. They begin their affair during middle-of-the-night rides on New York City subway trains. In alternating chapters, these two main characters chronicle their romance from unique perspectives. This arrangement lends itself particularly well to audio as the chapters are designed to have different "voices." Narrators Jesse Bernstein and Amber Sealey are well suited to their characters. Bernstein successfully carries off the difficult role of a naòve 17-year-old boy. Amber Sealey has a particularly appealing voice. Her mature, matter-of-fact Maria proves an excellent counterpoint to the angst-ridden Sebastian. M.O.B. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

January 14, 2008
In the simple and captivating latest from Pay It Forward
author Hyde, a chance encounter proves life-changing for two lonely New York City subway riders. Four months shy of 18, Sebastian Mundt has been held a virtual prisoner by his father since his mother died: his father home-schools him and doesn't let him have outside relationships. One night, with his father heavily sedated by his sleeping pill, Sebastian sneaks out to ride the subway and locks eyes with Maria Arquette, a young mother who is caught in an abusive marriage. The two share an instant connection and take to meeting on the subway almost nightly and tentatively planning a future in the California desert town that Sebastian remembers from childhood, where thousands of windmills stretch out across the horizon. Hyde gracefully alternates between Sebastian's and Maria's perspectives with gentle nods to this New York love story's precursors (Maria obsessively watches West Side Story
). It is their voices—at once utterly credible and heartbreakingly naïve—that make the book, and while this is being billed as an adult novel, its closest stylistic relative is S.E. Hinton's YA classic The Outsiders
.