Running in Circles: A Memoir

by Eva Yin

Eighteen-year-old Eva Yin is admitted into an ER in the San Francisco Bay Area for a serious blood infection — the souvenir of a missed shot of heroin. Barely recovered and against medical advice, she leaves the hospital for New York City only to end up homeless and face prostitution and violence. Being a heroin addict is like running in circles. You run and you run and you end up exactly where you started. In the end, Eva finally stops running but only after crossing the span of an entire continent and coming back to the shores of California— she is back to where she started but she isn’t the same. Running in Circles is the unflinching true story of one woman’s struggle and recovery from heroin addiction.

Genres: Memoir, Addiction, Nonfiction

531 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 17, 2016

About the author

Eva Yin is a Chinese American writer, author, and visual artist living in the San Francisco Bay Area.

She is a recovered heroin addict and has been clean for more than seven years. Eva is a practicing Buddhist and and has earned two undergraduate degrees in anthropology and art.

She has published her memoir with the hope that others will read her story and become inspired to leave their addictions behind them, as she has.

Reviews

[Stephen Sell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book in that it held my attention the whole time. But not a lot of substance or value in terms of insight into understanding addiction or recovery. The authors naivety in general was painfully apparent. The book is basically about the author’s experience of living on the street for 3-4 weeks in New York City while addicted to heroin. She frequently talks about being homeless, but are you really homeless if you lived on the streets for a few weeks while you waited for your flight home and then waited another week after missing the flight to take the bus, all while your parents send you money?

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was intrigued by this book and it was one that I couldn't put down but it just seemed that she repeated parts of the book over and over again and I was looking forward to a bigger resolution than what I got at the end of the book. Don't get me wrong, addiction is hard and it is hard to get over but for a 526 page book, I guess I was expecting something a bit more profound.

I am on the fence as to whether or not I would recommend the book. If you want a fast read, this is a great book; if you want an easy story to get lost in, this is a great book; but if you want something more in depth and more profound, I would say skip this book and move on to something else.

[Amanda Potter · Rating 1 out of 5]

painful for the author perhaps

I rarely rate this low but this was surely a painful experience for the author however a book about 4 weeks of homelessness and addiction which was clearly a choice as seen through the writing makes me upset for people not exploiting addiction memoirs and have clearly suffered and survived much more than a privileged woman who chose to not just change a plane ticket and go home when that is clearly an option. This is written like it lasted a life time. It was four weeks. Author-I’m glad you’ve healed but perhaps you should think about advocating for people who have truly suffered instead of exploiting this community with your “story.”

[Susan Ely · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was not great. It was interesting from a perspective of being homeless in NYC, as someone who lived in NYC for 20 years. Otherwise, the story drags and you don’t ever really care about any of the characters. While almost everything takes place with her twin sister, you never learn anything about her twin other than her name. The one relationship that has any development at all is still mostly unexplored. While this may portray an accurate depiction of the mindset of a heroine addict, as a reader, the book simply feels empty.

[Rita Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book

I can say she a strong girl. She been up and down. But some how she came home. Anyone who has a drug addiction. Read this book. So real.

[Pennee Tibin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good read

I love reading other people's stories, especially heroin addiction, and other kinds of addictions. I love reading inspiring stories about overcoming the things that keep us all running in circles doing the same thing over and over hoping for a different result.

[malani Ricky · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a boring read

I wasn't to happy with this book. It was a good story, as far as the girl getting clean in the end. But the events leading up to that were rather dull.

[Amy Van Heerde · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Gripping from start to finish.

[Janet Squire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read.

I hope everyone can learn from this, an addict is a complicated life. She saw the light. Very proud of her.

[Jamie Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kept me hooked.

This book was raw and had me hooked from the beginning. Up close and personal with true addiction and how far it takes people.

[Dalana Reeves Parks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Circles I run

This is an amazing book very well written and easily able to relate to . I felt like I was right there with the twins in every move they made

[Arlene Gutierrez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting

This book can be of great help to addicts, recovering addicts, and those who are struggling in their lives. I enjoyed it and imagine that others will,as well.

[Kelly Conrad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Her writing style is fairly pedestrian…nothing fancy but gets the job done. I was not terribly taken with her story, though. She spends a lot of time romanticizing her drug of choice and life on the streets, something I find to be incredibly dangerous for those in recovery. Hence the WARNING: If you are/were a heroin addict, this memoir may be massively triggering!

She exhibits a pretty major hypocritical streak in that she feels strongly that those who did wrong around her should have consequences and face justice but excuses herself, cavalierly, as if she should get a pass because she was using at the time. I picked up a weird vibe that she felt almost snobby about her addiction, thinking herself a “better”or more disciplined drug addict because she was a purist and only did heroin?? Okay…

I interpreted the issues about her that I found un-relatable to be the result of her having not done enough work around humility in her recovery, but it could also have been that I needed to check my own ego and stop reading from a judgmental standpoint. :)

This was the first addiction memoir I have read, where I just wasn’t a fan of the author. Additionally, her writing style didn’t inspire a lot of compassion, which is normally free-flowing from me in this genre. At times in the book, she even had the audacity to bitch about living conditions on the streets—when she was actively choosing that life because she had no desire to get clean yet.

All in all, I appreciated her sharing her story and very real struggles, but there are definitely far more powerful memoirs out there if one is looking to be inspired or to gain insight about addiction battles.

[Linda Is on her way · Rating 1 out of 5]

Got through 40%
I listened to the audiobook.
She definitely made some choices, but I don't want to judge that at the moment. My problems with the book were several. One was that she said her dad loved his children unconditionally - I refuse to believe a man who beats his child and calls the police on his child for locking their door loves his children. Either you're delusional or something else but that just isn't possible. Also about the grape. Just because you're going along with it, even though you didn't want it, doesn't make it consensual. I hope she knows that. I don't care if her mom's mentally ill or not, that doesn't excuse what she did.

[Erika · Rating 1 out of 5]

I genuinely believe the author did not even read over this book ONCE before it was published. The amount of spelling, grammar, and verb mistakes was appalling and could have been avoided with proper editing.
The story was fine but that’s all it was: a story. There was no depth.
The author kept calling herself homeless when in reality she was just on a little vacation while her parents sent her money and waited for her return. She came off as entitled and very out of touch.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unfortunately, there is little substance to this book. All of the key players are left without enough character exploration to either empathize or relate to them. Eva leaves quite a bit to be desired, and I was not able to connect with her; this supposedly rough lot in life, and relatively unscathed.

[Denise Piper · Rating 1 out of 5]

Awful!

No editing, no fact checker, no spell checker!! If you want to read a book to help you kick heroin, please don’t let it be this one. I’m not even convinced any of this is true. Go to a reputable source and find books that were written by real authors. So sorry, but this book is pure garbage.

[Stephanie Bonnette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good enough

I like reading really messed up stuff & this was just another story. Not too much turmoil, but keeps you reading to see how it ends. Not that I want terrible things to happen to people by any means; my taste is just the more fuckered up the better. Decent quick read tho.

[Elisabeth Brookshire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Homelessness and a new culture

What I got from this book was, of course, a story of heroin addiction but much of the book was spent telling what happened to the author and her twin sister when they find themselves homeless in NYC. There's no information about how the author actually gets clean. She wades into some water, realises how small and finite we humans really are and then...wham, I guess she's clean after five years. A pretty amazing feat. I did enjoy reading about her Chinese-American upbringing but overall I didn't really enjoy the book.

[erica laviolette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read

Felt like I was there with the author. Couldn't put down. Relatable material . Left wanting to know more about her life

[Alisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well shared

I always appreciate a Memoir and the main character sharing their emotions and experiences. These girls were lucky worse didn’t happen.

[Desiree Kenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book

I loved it smooth reading until the end it to me was hard to read I'm glad she is clean now

[Starla Parker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was great! I read it in one sitting because I could just not put it down!

[Nerissa Katzeek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good

This is a great book! Hard to put down! I recommend this to anyone, I promise you will enjoy this book.

[Kirsten Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read

This book was captivating and I couldn't put it down. The ending was a great wrap-up but left me wanting to hear more.

[Jen Holliday · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed her writing style and the book in general.

[Kristen Sennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good read

Definitely kept me interested. I felt like I was right there with them. Recovery isn't always pretty but it's definitely worth it.