Review: Cutting Loose by Nadine Dajani

Title: Cutting loose
Author: Nadine Dajani
Publisher: Forge Books (September 30, 2008)
Buy the book here

All I can say is ‘WOW, what a book!!!‘

When I received this book in mail, my only intention was to scan the book, read a couple of pages and then keep it aside for future reading. I mean I do have a TBR pile and I would feel kind of guilty reading this book immediately. But honestly, once I read the first couple of pages I couldn’t stop. It was just that good.

3 woman-Ranya, Zahra and Rio. All 3 of them are from different backgrounds, have different problems and different ways of handling them. Somehow all land in Miami working together for the same firm.

Ranya is a rich woman from Middle East settled in Montreal with her parents. Just after one month of marriage she discovers that her husband is gay. Instead of going back to her parents she runs away to Miami to sort out her life. Zahra comes to Miami to be with the only person she has really loves, Georges. Although he has no idea about her feelings, she stays with his firm for many years just to be close to him and hopes that he would one day feel the same for her. Rio rises from the slums in Honduras, Latin America and builds a life for herself as an editor in chief of a magazine owned by the same company Zahra and Ranya work in. Rio is in love with Georges brother who is a Casanova and she knows they have no future together.

When these 3 women cross paths, I somehow imagined all of them forming everlasting friendships and helping each other find their destiny. But surprisingly that is not the case. All 3 of them have different stories but somehow their fate is connected to each other.
 
Ranya has to decide what do with her life. As a rich girl who never had to suffer even for a single day in her life, even finding a job is a huge challenge. Zahra has to take her life in control and think about her choices. Does she want to live in a city she hates and work in something that she does not love, just for a man who is pining for another woman? Will Rio will be able to leave the only thing she loves and the only thing she thinks is her biggest accomplishment, her magazine?

As the story progresses, all three of them find the courage required to cut loose their ties from the past, enter into a whole new and challenging territory, leaving something that is painful but familiar behind.
 
Call it woman’s fiction or multicultural fiction or even chick-lit, Cutting Loose has a great story, fantastic characters and beautiful writing. What more could you want in a book?

About the author: (From wikipedia)
Nadine Dajani is a Canadian author. She is the eldest of three children of Bassam Dajani, a mathematics major turned entrepreneur, and Haifa Naffa. She penned short stories throughout elementary and high school but did not pursue any formal journalistic or creative writing training. Fashionably Late, which she started writing at 25, was her first attempt at adult fiction. She has folowed that with a second novel Cutting Loose in 2008 and a third is under preparation tentaviely titled Cubanista.

Born in Beirut, Lebanon, Dajani moved to Canada with her family in 1987. Dajani undertook studies in Commerce at Concordia University in Montreal, majoring in accounting. Upon receiving her Certified Management Accounting designation in 2002, she relocated to the Cayman Islands to work in the offshore banking industry. Nadine is also a travel writer, whose articles have been published in Atmosphere magazine.

Also take a look at S. Krishna’s review.

I am adding this book in Orbis Terrarum Challenge. The author was born in Lebanon.