Echoes (series) by Jamilah Kolocotronis

This is only my second book review of an entire series, but I have wanted to review the books in the Echoes series for a long time. Today is finally the day!
 
Echoes by Jamilah Kolocotronis has 5 books in the series. In order, they are:
1. Echoes
2. Rebounding
3. Turbulence
4. Ripples
5. Silence
 
To read the description for each book usually found in the back, please click the titles above.
 
I first found out about this series about 6 years ago when a friend sent me the ebooks to the first 4 books in this series. At the time, Islamic fiction was new to me, so it was refreshing to take a break from all the science fiction/ fantasy I was reading. For those people who dislike the books saying they are preachy of Islam, what did you expect from a Muslim publisher??? Who do you think the main audience is??? I don't think the books are preachy and I like how topics are connected to Islam and how references to Islam are made. To me, everything seemed to flow nicely.
 
I really enjoyed the series then and even now rereading the series for the second time. I would consider it one of my favorite series and a great introduction to Islamic fiction (for adults). I like how the author doesn't shy away from any subject. She includes a lot of different subjects throughout the series including life and death, parenthood, marriage and divorce, suicide, gangs, addiction, work and family problems, etc. Because of all of these subjects, I feel like the series is for adults. Therefore, I would only recommend it to adults!

Although I liked all the books each for their own reasons, I enjoyed Turbulence the most, then Ripples, Silence, Echoes, and finally Rebounding. A character's travels to the Grand Canyon, oceans, mountains, Seattle, Michigan, South Dakota, etc. sounded fun. It made me want to go traveling too! I also liked the funny sarcasm parts in Turbulence and Silence. The books did make me realize a few things. For example, the parent-child relationships (particularly in Silence) made me realize I have a lot to improve on. The death of a character towards the end of the series also made me think about how I might die and what I want to accomplish before my death.

Some parts related to family life were interesting. For example, how a character said you can't like someone (or at least it is hard to like someone) that doesn't respect your mother. True! Another character realizes she should have given her children a better father. This goes both ways! When looking for a spouse, one should consider if that person would make a good parent for future children. I really liked "Uncle  Psychologist's" counseling bits. Finally, a marriage might not look like it is going well, but if the children learn from the adult's mistakes, the children can be the best thing that came out of the marriage. This goes to show that mistakes can be a good thing if people learn from them.

Since I am "judging" a series, I think it is okay to say that there were 3 things I didn't like, but still consider it a favorite series. All the characters got me confused at one point, so I actually made a family tree! Of course in 5 big books in a series, there will be a lot of characters. In the Echoes series, there were 20+ main characters! However, I liked that the series went further into the lives of 3 brothers and their children, especially in Ripples. Secondly, despite all the conflicts which were interesting to read about, it got tiring that most of the time, things seemed to work out in the end. Finally, I noticed a number of typos (in Silence).
 
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