Doubleday/Flying Dolphin Press Sebastian is a 17-year-old young man who lives a sheltered existence in New York City with a fearful, bullying and controlling father. Maria is a young woman who, at only 22, is saddled with two children and a dangerously abusive live-in boyfriend. They meet while riding the subways under Manhattan late at night. Together they make a plan to run away to the Mojave Desert in California, where Sebastian’s grandmother lives. But it won’t be easy. Sebastian (or Tony, as Maria calls him, obsessed with the lovers in the old classic movie West Side story) doesn’t even know Maria has children. And he hasn’t seen his grandmother since he was 6 years old. And he has only just found out that his mother is not dead, as his father has consistently claimed. Maria meets him as planned, and they head west, but with only one of Maria’s two children. The boy remains her secret. But as Sebastian’s feelings of maternal abandonment come forth in words, she knows she must go back for her other child. Now the trick will be to get him and get out with her life.
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Simple and captivating. It is [Sebastian's and Maria's] voices—at once utterly credible and heartbreakingly naive —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. --Publishers Weekly Hyde writes evocatively of the visceral nature of first love. Her characters are well developed, and she describes settings economically but effectively. The ending is realistic and satisfying. Short chapters make for a page-turning read and the distinct voices are sweet, soul-baring, and honest. --School Library Journal. read more >>> A gentle tale centering on how people come to grip with their pasts. --Kirkus |
