Reading An Old Soul felt like flipping through a vivid photo album of the late ’90s—sun-drenched streets, VHS stores, sweaty CTA rides, and all. M. Kevin Hayden tells the story of Isaac André, a thoughtful, offbeat 25-year-old from Chicago’s South Side who’s just trying to make sense of his life, his past, and the weirdly precise coincidences that keep nudging him toward something… bigger. Between working at Big Shoulders Video, helping his grandma with groceries, and being a low-key jazz and sci-fi nerd, Isaac starts experiencing reality in ways that don’t quite add up. Then, a late-night chatroom encounter changes everything.

Hayden’s writing hits that sweet spot between lyrical and raw. The book’s opening—Isaac sweating it out in Chicago’s brutal summer heat—pulled me right in. It’s textured, specific, and alive. There’s this subtle magic threaded through the ordinary moments, like buses always arriving on cue or the TV glitching in a loop—small, eerie clues that something’s off in Isaac’s world. That grounded surrealism reminded me a bit of early Richard Linklater or Donnie Darko, minus the angst and with more Miles Davis.

But the soul of this book, for me, is Isaac’s quiet longing—for connection, for clarity, for meaning. It’s in the way he tenderly checks on his grandma every day, how he geeks out over Philip K. Dick and jazz records, how he paints a mural in his tiny attic apartment of a sun-drenched meadow with two silhouetted figures. That mural is such a beautiful, wordless representation of hope and memory and maybe even fate. And the scene where he finally goes online for the first time was straight-up nostalgic gold. That slow, clunky loading screen. The “You’ve got messages!” voice. The awkward chatroom banter. And then he meets Noa, aka BirdGurl9, and suddenly his world expands in a way that feels both cosmic and heartbreakingly personal.

Hayden nails the vibe of being young, smart, and totally unsure if you’re lost or exactly where you’re meant to be. The scenes with Sharika at the video store—her insults, Isaac’s restraint, the sheer mundanity of rewinding VHS tapes—make the oddness of the rest of the story feel even sharper. And the way the universe seems to respond to Isaac’s quiet goodness made me weirdly emotional. This isn’t just a story about synchronicity; it’s about faith—not religious faith, but that quiet, gut-level trust that maybe you’re not as alone as you think. Maybe the right people show up when you need them most.

By the end, I didn’t want to leave Isaac’s world. An Old Soul is a book for anyone who’s ever felt out of step with the world but still believes there’s something waiting for them—something meaningful, something more. I’d recommend it to fans of coming-of-age stories with a touch of the mystical, readers who love deeply specific character work, and anyone who’s ever searched for “something” late at night on a dial-up connection.

Pages: 233 | ASIN : B0F453QXNG