King Arthur Movie Tristan

title: Chasing Windmills

author: Catherine Ryan Hyde

genre: fiction


published: 2008

pages: 262

first line: This is the part that's going to be hard to explain: How can I tell you why two people who were afraid of everything-other people, open spaces, noise, confusion, life itself-wound up riding the subways alone under Manhattan late at night?




rated: 5 out of 5 stars

Catherine Ryan Hyde, bestselling author of Pay It Forward, returns with a provocative tour de force on first love—a modern-day rendering of West Side Story born on a New York City subway car and nurtured under the windmills of the Mojave Desert.


The subway doors open and close, and in one moment Sebastian’s and Maria’s lives are changed forever. Rendered in Catherine Ryan Hyde’s stirring and evocative prose, CHASING WINDMILLS is a poignant love story that will leave you yearning for a subway ride that is a fraction as enchanting.

Seventeen year old Sebastian lives with his father in an apartment in New York. His dad home schools him and Sebastian is not allowed to leave the apartment or have any friends. He's not allowed to watch tv or movies. His father also puts fear into him about anything having to do with the outside world. Everything Sebastian does is closely monitored, including the books he is allowed to read. By doctors orders, Sebastian is allowed to go running. He does like being outside and ends up sneaking out at night while his father is asleep.




Sebastian takes a ride on the subway one night and notices a woman getting on the train. Maria is a twenty-two year old mother of two young children. She has been with the father of her children, a man named Carl, since she was fifteen.



Carl hits Maria, but she usually blames herself for making him angry enough to do it. She works the night shift at a grocery store and lost her job recently, but doesn't tell Carl. Instead, she continues to leave at night and ride on the subway as if she's going to work.




When she notices Sebastian on the train one night, she is surprised at her own feelings about him. The two start to show up at the subway each night after midnight just to see each other. And after a few days, they finally speak to each other.

Soon enough they fall in love and Sebastian asks Maria to run away with him.

"Maybe I'll see you tomorrow," she said, and then she walked off the train. But just before the doors closed, she looked back over her shoulder at me. This time she didn't smile. This time I looked into her eyes and saw in a little deeper. Almost like she took down a curtain and let me see into one of the rooms of her house.

She was sad, and in trouble. That's what I saw.

I loved this story. I lived inside this book for a couple of days. You know how sometimes you can get really into a book and the storyline and characters just grab you? This is what happened while I read this story. I really wanted Sebastian and Maria to have a happy ending. The plot was really good and I found myself not wanting to put this book down.

'First I found out that there was only one face in the whole world, as far as I was concerned, and it was hers. Exactly hers. Nobody else's. It matched the one I had been trying so hard to remember, to see in my head, for so long. And it wasn't just her features, either. It was her smile. The way she cut her eyes away. The way she moved.

It was like a key that fit into a lock when no other key would.'

I am a fan of Catherine Ryan Hyde's work. The first novel I read of hers was 'Pay It Forward' and since then I've been hooked. I will be picking up more of her books in the future.







About the author:

Catherine Ryan Hyde is the author of 11 published and forthcoming books, including the story collection Earthquake Weather, and the novels Funerals for Horses, Pay it Forward, Electric God, and Walter’s Purple Heart. Pay It Forward was adapted into a major motion picture, chosen by the American Library Association for its Best Books for Young Adults list, and translated into more than 20 languages for distribution in over 30 countries. The paperback was released in October 2000 by Pocket Books and quickly became a national bestseller.

quoted from http://www.cryanhyde.com/author_profile.html



visit the authors websites:

http://www.cryanhyde.com/


http://www.myspace.com/catherineryanhyde



Pay It Forward Movement