Read Online The Broken Circle A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan eBook Enjeela AhmadiMiller

Product details File Size 6015 KB Print Length 250 pages Publisher Little A (March 1, 2019) Publication Date March 1, 2019 Sold by  Digital Services LLC Language English ASIN B07DK7FBDS

The Broken Circle A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan eBook Enjeela AhmadiMiller Reviews

• This month’s First Reads, at first glance, was not impressive in the least. I pored through the blurbs three times before selecting “The Broken Circle.” I was not in the mood for a memoir, especially of a woman from another country. For such a story, thought I, all I needed was to recollect meeting, courting, then marrying my wife, while I lived and worked in Egypt. The primary difference, in my mind, was my spouse was an Egyptian Christian, and the author of this book was an Afghani Muslim woman, now living in Texas. Just seemed a little too close to home for me, at this time.
  
  Brother, was I ever wrong. “The Broken Circle” is now my favorite memoir. Even more touching than was “Never Stop Walking,” or “Three Against the Wilderness.”
  
  Try this on for size If you loved Patrick Swayze in “Red Dawn,” or the primary story of “Sound of Music” with Julie Andrews, you will have a front row seat into Enjeela’s early childhood during the late 1970’s and 1980’s. At this point, just let her story creep into your subconscious…
  
  The only way this story could have been better appreciated, by me, would be to have listened to her narrate it as an Audible Edition.
  
  Now, on with my review…
  
  BLUSH FACTOR There is no reason to shy away from reading this to anybody you like. No profanities, wild sex or gratuitous violence. In fact, I would home everybody would form circles of friends and kin and take turns reading this aloud as an inspiration to us to do God’s will.
  
  WRITING & EDITING As with many memoirs, the early going can seem a trifle slow. However, the writing and editing are professional and the story unfolds in a manner to ensure maximum effect. Slow as the start was, it was sensitive enough that I found a tear or two trying to escape. Then, I came to page 68 and knew I loved this story and the dream, if it was a dream, Enjeela chose to share with the world. (See the excerpt below).
  
  POV First person.
  
  Excerpt
  
  ‘…It was one of these freezing winter nights that I saw the man with the white horse.
  
  He walked right out of Ahmad Shah’s closet toward me. He was an old man, a very old man, with a long white beard, and his clothes matched the brilliant white of his horse, who had a princely saddle, full mane, and a bushy tail. He stood tall and strong next to the man. At first I was certain they were ghosts. But we had been telling ghost stories all night long, so then I thought I must be asleep and it was a dream.
  
  “I can see you,” I said to him.
  
  The man stopped and stared down at me. He held the horse’s reins as if he were taking it out for a midnight ride to see what was left of the city.
  
  “Are you awake?” he said, a lilt of surprise in his voice.
  
  I told him I was. “Who are you?” I asked, suspecting already that I might know who he was.
  
  “You can see me, little one?”
  
  I sat up and nodded. He was as real to me as my sisters and brother sleeping beside me.
  
  “You must be very special to see me. No one sees me.” He smiled at me and tugged on the reins of the horse. “I must go,” he said. “Go back to sleep before the others wake up.” His voice was warm and caring. None of the others even stirred.
  
  Before he left the room, he turned to me. “Don’t tell anyone you’ve seen me.”
  
  “I won’t.” I watched him disappear back into the darkness of the closet.
  
  The next morning, I woke up slowly as I tried to make sense of my dream. It had to have been a dream, but it was so real, so alive. The bearded man in white had been so close to me, and I thought I could smell the musty odor of a sweaty horse.
  
  I saw him several more times before we moved. He told me many times how special I was that I could see him, and for the first time I understood that specialness as something I could do that my sisters and Zia couldn’t—I could see the bearded man with his white horse and warm smile and gentle voice.
  
  Ahmadi-Miller, Enjeela. The Broken Circle A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan (pp. 68-69). Edition.
  
  BOTTOM LINE
  
  Obviously, I loved this memoir and recommend it for everybody. It just might change your life and, if enough of us read it, it just might help bring our nation back together, even if only for a moment.
  
  Five stars out of five.
  
  I am striving to produce reviews that help you find books that you want, or avoid books that you wish to avoid.
• Beautifully written...the author has a way of transporting you to her homeland and sways you to see Afghanistan as a beautiful place that was overthrown and crushed by horrible events. It educates you on why some people stayed and others fled. I can't imagine the tough decisions that those parents had to make for their children. Great book definitely recommend it!
• Most of the book was quite engaging and stunning in it's detail of a horrendous trial of emigration. Did not care for the ending which centered on buying fancy clothes and shopping instead of introspection about what had transpired traveling for the 2 or more years out of Afghanistan. The siblings she had endured countless challenges with in their escape were virtually ignored at the end after settling in India and only mentioned once in passing. I felt it was a slap in the face to them especially after all they had been through. It was like they disappeared off the face of the earth and she fawned over the sister who was whisked away in a plane as a baby and led the charmed life in comparison. I felt like the long escape was written by a ghost writer and the beginning and end written by the author as it was so different. Lots of things not said which make me suspicious Mysterious contacts, lots of money everywhere but no jobs, lack of compassion for other members of the family, mysterious access to America--to me it was a sad ending in what it didn't say. How were 4 children living alone able to live in a Pakistan hotel for 6 months and have the money to pay for it. Where did they hide that much money on a trip through the six month trip through the mountains of Afghanistan and keep it throughout their 6 months in Pakistan. Too many kinks in the story which takes away from the real struggle of refugees.
• This is a beautifully written account of life in Afghanistan before it became a Wharton country. Through the eyes of a five-year-old girl we see her comfortable life, in a large Muslim family in Kabul. Then democracy and peace are shattered, first with civil turmoil, and then by the invasion of the Russian army. Her security is rattled when her mother and 2 siblings leave for India. The remaining four children have to care for themselves, because their father, who works for the American embassy , is consumed with work and then seeks his own comfort in alcohol. Soviet tanks rumble down their street, and life is unsafe. Where is Mommy? Will she ever come back? Eventually Father arranges for a guide to smuggle the children to Pakistan. The account of this journey, and their subsequent wait in Pakistan for their father to follow is filled with vivid detail, pathos, and a near loss of hope. Little Enjeela has many sad experiences yet clings to the hope that they will one day be together again, and this hope is fulfilled.
• Really enjoyed this. I’m not one for non fiction much less a memoir but this book has great pacing and I was completely wrapped up in the tale. I finished in 2 days. I have already recommended this to my friends.
• As another reviewer said, I was not real taken with any of the free books for Prime readers this month, but I settled on The Broken Circle as I love memoirs. I was not disappointed. This was a great book. I finished it in just over a day, could not put it down. I also have to thank the author for introducing me to the poetry of Hafiz. Her father quotes it to her and the one about "How Birds Fly" appealed to me so much I had to write it down. I wish the author would write a sequel because I would like to know about their emigration to the United States and where the family all settled. It's unbelievable the trek she took as a little girl to get out of Afghanistan.