Full Circle by Regina Timothy / Books Teacup and Reviews

Publication Date: December 24th 2017

Read Date: June 1st 2018

Genre: contemporary, fiction

Pages: 389

Stars: 4.5/5

Eight years after the 9/11 attacks, Samia-Al-Sayyid an Iraqi immigrant is living a quiet life in New York City after she fled her home to avoid imminent death.

She works hard for her cold, heartless, high-strung boss, loves her seventeen-years-old-son, and cherishes the close friendship she has formed with her best friend Susan.

Nothing can go wrong, or so she thinks – until the estranged brother she left back in Iraqi shows up on her door step. Then she finds herself in a cab, on her way to the hospital to identify her son, a terror suspect who has blown the city, and with it her boss’ husband, and her best friend’s son. With everything lost, she is forced to flee to Iraq where she confronts her past. Will she make peace with her past? Can she get forgiveness for all the damage she has caused?

Full Circle is a contemporary fiction tale of friendship, family, and hope. It explores the devastation of loss, the great capacity to forgive and the lengths our loved ones will go to protect us.

Full Circle is contemporary fiction, a story of three women whose life was changed by the crucial period of 9/11 attack and war of US with Iraq. As blurb said this story is truly about friendship, family, love, hope and moreover gives the different perspective towards life, people and world. It highly speaks about compassion, humanity, forgiveness, moving on in life, looking at the good side of things and a person, and finding happiness.

Samia– She was such a great woman. She was Middle-eastern American. She suffered lot as a child, had to flee to US when she was pregnant and there too pain and suffering never left her alone. It was like her shadow. She was so strong, nice, good-hearted, never let hatred and evil poison her pure heart, she fought for peace and good life throughout her life. It was amazing to read this character. I simply admired her not because she was nice but because she was raw, real and also had flaws. I wish she had discussed her past with her son. It was terrible to see what happened to her in the book.
Melisa– She was employer of both Samia and Susan. She was not likable woman at first glance. She was owner of biggest fashion house in the world. She worked from scratch to top on her own. Ruthless, selfish, evil witch was her impression among her staff. She was intimidating, determined and strong lady. She also had soft side but that transformation needed lot of pain and suffering for this character. Her personal life was wrack but she held herself so bravely and for that I just loved her. By the end of the book, as Samia said, ‘Madam Melisa was full of surprises’.
Susan– what to say about her. She was just remarkable. What she went through in this book was unimaginable. I kept thinking, how one person can lose so much in life and still can find compassion in heart. She taught me lot at the end of the book. I just loved the way she fought grief of her husband’s death, her daughter’s illness, and Melisa’s cruel treatment.

This book was mostly character driven layered with religion, views and mindset of people, misconceptions, injustice, prejudice, social issues, drug addictions, suicide, bully, harassment and abuse, terrorism, casualties of war, and women’s rights and suffering in the world of men.
Book was so creatively well written, narrated by third person with viewpoint of 3 leading ladies of the book- Samia, Melisa, and Susan. All these 3 women was living different life that was intertwined with each other, had their own problems and struggles. Their life story was poignant, not easy to read. It felt real and I felt so close to these characters. The book was steady paced and flowed very smoothly. Emotions of characters were so raw, real, and heart-wrenching. It was true emotional roller-coaster.
Samia’s life and view was more focused in the book and I could see it why by the end. Her life traveled literally a Full Circle. She went back where she came from and again came back where she found her home. It was kind of implausible but can’t deny its amazingness.
Most outstanding thing about the book was different perspective. There was view of American during the crucial time period, view of family whose loved ones went to fight the war, and view of innocent Middle-Easterns caught in middle of tragic situations. All these combined in one book gave totally different perspective. I always believed not all are bad because one person did something bad. One should not blame whole community because of one bad person and that this book told in remarkable way. In this book I saw all sides of humanity.
There were so many lessons things to learn from this book. It was truly inspirational and protagonists of the book were so motivational. I just loved that even though lot of bad things happening in book, goodness in characters was enough to outweigh those bad things.
Hardest thing to read in book was Jack and Azim’s torment and suffering in school. And how they were viewed by everyone. It really pained to see that no one wanted to understand these boys or wanted to know true story of them and most devastating was the bully who made their life hell was recognized as a victim.
Climax was just perfect. I was holding my breath, anticipating next scenes and angry at characters for not taking things more seriously and surprised at the same time. The end was most beautiful thing in whole book. It was insightful and touching and loved what all protagonists said at the end.

There were so many serious topics in the book but author wrote it little less harshly which was both good and bad. Good because it made it easy to read and bad because I’m sure I would have cried if it was written bit differently, with more detail, emotions and more open truth.

Overall, it was simply amazing, eye-opening, inspiring and insightful character driven fiction that I recommend to all readers.

Author: Regina Timothy
About Author:
Regina lives in a picturesque village in Kenya where she enjoys amazing landscapes, exotic wildlife, and beautiful sunsets and sunrises. She always had active imagination. By chance, she started blogging in 2010, which rekindled her love for writing and telling stories. When not writing she enjoys watching classic movies (she’s a movie buff), going to the theater and auto shows.