Book Review: Kabul Beauty School

Author: Deborah Rodriguez

Pages: 270

Genre: Non-Fiction

Personal Rating 5

From the back cover:

Soon after the fall of the Taliban, in 2001, Deborah Rodriguez went to Afghanistan as part of a group offering humanitarian aid to this war-torn nation. Surrounded by men and women whose skills–as doctors, nurses, and therapists–seemed eminently more practical than her own, Rodriguez, a hairdresser and mother of two from Michigan, despaired of being of any real use. Yet she soon found she had a gift for befriending Afghans, and once her profession became known she was eagerly sought out by Westerners desperate for a good haircut and by Afghan women, who have a long and proud tradition of running their own beauty salons. Thus an idea was born.

With the help of corporate and international sponsors, the Kabul Beauty School welcomed its first class in 2003. Well meaning but sometimes brazen, Rodriguez stumbled through language barriers, overstepped cultural customs, and constantly juggled the challenges of a postwar nation even as she learned how to empower her students to become their families’ breadwinners by learning the fundamentals of coloring techniques, haircutting, and makeup.

Yet within the small haven of the beauty school, the line between teacher and student quickly blurred as these vibrant women shared with Rodriguez their stories and their hearts: the newlywed who faked her virginity on her wedding night, the twelve-year-old bride sold into marriage to pay her family’s debts, the Taliban member’s wife who pursued her training despite her husband’s constant beatings. Through these and other stories, Rodriguez found the strength to leave her own unhealthy marriage and allow herself to love again, Afghan style.

With warmth and humor,Rodriguez details the lushness of a seemingly desolate region and reveals the magnificence behind the burqa. Kabul Beauty School is a remarkable tale of an extraordinary community of women who come together and learn the arts of perms, friendship, and freedom.

Yep, a fiver! You know when a book has you scavenging the Internet for places to volunteer overseas that it has made an impact on you. I loved this book for two main reasons. Or I guess i should say for the two glimpses it gives you. The first is the glimpse it gives you into the life of Afghan women and the second is the glimpse it gives you into the life of the woman Debbie Rodriguez. Her dedication of the book tells you a lot about her "style"but leaves a lot of her "style"to be discovered

"This book is dedicated to my father, Junior Turner, who passed away June 5, 2002, while I was on my first trip to Afghanistan. Dad, I never got a chance to tell you about Afghanistan and the school. You left me too soon. I know you would love Sam, my husband--he is just like you, but Afghan style. I know you would be worried, but also very happy that I am following my dream. I miss you."

Debbie Rodriguez is an spirited, tough, inspirational woman who just doesn't quit. She ends up in Afghanistan as part of a group of humanitarian workers and feels very out of place with the doctors, nurses, teachers, and engineers. She feels like she has no place there. She is just a lowly hair dresser. But when she is introduced with her group for the evening her job title brings down the house and she is instantly surrounded by women (& men) who just want a little pampering! She is needed just as much as the doctors, just in a different way.

Rodriguez comes to learn that her skills are actually very valuable because men cannot enter beauty salons (since women take off their veils and their hair can be seen). If she can teach women how to run their own salons they would ultimately be in control of their own money. Their husbands would never see how much they were actually making since they couldn't enter the salons. The women would for once have some small control over their own lives. They of course would have to turn their money over to their husbands but since he wouldn't know how much they were actually making...

So the book follows Debbie from the beginning of her quest for free donations and her joining of forces with Vogue and Clairol who had already begun to start a Kabul Beauty School, to her marriage to Sam (an Afghan) up until 2006 when her salon and the beauty school are locked up and Kabul is locked down due to political unrest.

I just kept reading and reading this book. I found it very inspirational and moving. I think anyone would enjoy this even if you do not normally enjoy non-fiction. It is just so eye opening to show us how another culture lives.

Book Review: Messenger

Author: Lois Lowry

Pages: 169

Genre: Fiction/Young Adult

Personal Rating 3.5

From the back cover:

For the past six years, Matty has lived in Village and flourished under the guidance of Seer, a blind man known for his special sight. Once, Village was a place that welcomed newcomers and offered hope and homes to people fleeing poverty and cruelty. But something sinister has seeped into Village, and the people have voted to close it to outsiders. All along, Matty has been invaluable as a messenger between Village and other communities. He hopes someday to earn the name of Messenger. Now he must make one last journey through the increasingly treacherous forest to spread the message of Village’s closing and convince Kira, Seer’s daughter, to return with him. Matty’s only weapon against his dangerous surroundings is a secret power he unexpectedly discovers within himself. He wants to heal the people who have nourished his body and spirit and is willing to offer the greatest gift and pay the ultimate price.

I read Messenger as my third book in the Themed Reading Challenge. My theme is books by the the author Lois Lowry. I've already read The Giver and Gathering Blue. My last book will be Number the Stars.

Messenger is listed as "A companion to the Newbery Award Winner The Giver and to Gathering Blue" and it does incorporate the two together, drawing on characters and experiences from both books. If you haven't read the prior two books I would wait to read Messenger.

I enjoyed Messenger but not nearly as much as The Giver or Gathering Blue. This book was similar to the first two in that the main character Matty exists in a world "similar yet different from ours". It actually seems to be happening simultaneously with the worlds of The Giver and Gathering Blue. While those worlds are (still) existing. When you read The Giver and Gathering Blue it seems that they are there own distinct worlds but you learn in Messenger that they are not.

I guess Lowry has lost a little of her shine for me. Her first two books were so different and surprising. I "sort of" knew what style to expect with Messenger and sure enough I was able to figure out what would be happening. It was still a good book, just not as good as the first two.

The God of Small Things

Author: Arundhati Roy

Pages: 321

Genre: Fiction

Personal Rating: 2.5

Awards: Booker Prize

From the back cover:

The story of the tragic decline of an Indian family whose members suffer the terrible consequences of forbidden love, The God of Small Things is set in the state of Kerala, on the southernmost tip of India. Armed only with the
invincible innocence of children, the twins Rahel and Esthappen fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family — their lonely, lovely mother, Ammu (who loves by night the man her children love by day), their blind grandmother, Mammachi (who plays Handel on her violin), their beloved uncle Chacko (Rhodes scholar, pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom-pincher), their enemy, Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grandaunt), and the ghost of an imperial entomologist's moth (with unusually dense dorsal tufts).

When their English cousin and her mother arrive on a Christmas visit, the twins learn that Things Can Change in a Day. That lives can twist into new, ugly shapes, even cease forever. The brilliantly plotted story uncoils with an agonizing sense of foreboding and inevitability. Yet nothing prepares you for what lies at the heart of it.

Well, unfortunately I've read another prize winner that has left me shaking my head. While I do admit Roy writes beautifully, I also found her writing tedious and confusing. She often jumped back and forth in time, making it difficult to tell what was going in. In one paragraph Ammu is alive and a few paragraphs later she has been dead for a long time. I found this novel difficult to read. After several chapters I found her writing style to be annoying. "She told me to 'stop it' so i 'stoppited it'". To me she came across as trying to hard to write uniquely.

There were many characters. I didn't really care about any of them. I don't feel Roy developed any of them enough to allow that. Or she jumped around so much you couldn't develop a bond with them. Plus there names were very confusing. Now this may partially be my fault. I started this book over a week ago out of town at a funeral. I got a chapter or two in and put it down in disgust. I re-injured my foot yesterday so I picked it back up for a marathon finish. I was determined to finish it so i could move onto a book I would enjoy more.

It's a little funny, I just went and read a few 5 star reviews and a lot of them even admit they initially had trouble staying interested or found it slow going.

Must read? I don't think so. With so many other books about India out there I would grab something else. Oh yeah, the story line overall is just plain depressing.

ALSO REVIEWED BY

Rebecca at The Inside Cover

Book Review: A Tree Grows In Brooklyn

Author: Betty Smith

Pages: 483

Genre: Fiction/Historical/YA

Personal Rating: 4.5

From the back cover:

I couldn't decide between the one that was actually on the back over or the one from Amazon so I've included both!

The American classic about a young girl's coming of age at the turn of the century.

"A profoundly moving novel, and an honest and true one. It cuts right to the heart of life...If you miss A Tree Grows in Brooklyn you will deny yourself a rich experience...It is a poignant and deeply understanding story of childhood and family relationships. The Nolans lived in the Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn from 1902 until 1919...Their daughter Francie and their son Neely knew more than their fair share of the privations and sufferings that are the lot of a great city's poor. Primarily this is Francie's book. She is a superb feat of characterization, an imaginative, alert, resourceful child. And Francie's growing up and beginnings of wisdom are the substance of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn." --New York Times

"One of the most dearly beloved and one of the finest books of our day." --Orville Prescott

"One of the books of the century."--New York Public Library

***********************************************************

Francie Nolan, avid reader, penny-candy connoisseur, and adroit observer of human nature, has much to ponder in colorful, turn-of-the-century Brooklyn. She grows up with a sweet, tragic father, a severely realistic mother, and an aunt who gives her love too freely--to men, and to a brother who will always be the favored child. Francie learns early the meaning of hunger and the value of a penny. She is her father's child--romantic and hungry for beauty. But she is her mother's child, too--deeply practical and in constant need of truth. Like the Tree of Heaven that grows out of cement or through cellar gratings, resourceful Francie struggles against all odds to survive and thrive. Betty Smith's poignant, honest novel created a big stir when it was first published over 50 years ago. Her frank writing about life's squalor was alarming to some of the more genteel society, but the book's humor and pathos ensured its place in the realm of classics--and in the hearts of readers, young and old

I have to admit, I loved it. I loved A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Usually I do not enjoy fiction that doesn't have a specific plot and just "sort of describes" a person life but this novel was different. For me it started slow but as I became engrossed with Francie and her family and how they would "manage to get by" (sometimes they did by pretending they were explorers stranded at the North Pole waiting for rescue) it went by faster and faster.

ATGIB is about a poor family and little girl growing in Brooklyn from 1902 -1919. So many small little incidences happen I often wondered how closely this book came to describing Betty Smiths actual life. The novel is divided into 5 Books each describing a differet section of Francies life (the first she is about 11, second is how her parents met until she is 7, the third covers their "education" schooling and other wise which continues until they are about 14, book 4 is about Francies having to take jobs to help earn money and finally book 5 sums it all up)

The character development is beautiful. I felt like I knew Francie, Neely, Katie and all the other characters. The writing is beautiful. I feel like I may have a little piece of what it was like to grow up poor during the early 1900's. The novel covered so many themes: poverty, class issues, gender roles, education, belief in god. All through a child's eye

Overall, the novel is not a fast read. This book is one to be savored and read slowly. It is listed as a YA novel, but the writing can get so descriptive I think many teens may find the book boring (especially boys).

ALSO REVIEWED BY

raidergirl3

Book Review: Rosemary's Baby

Author: Ira Levin

Pages: 302

Genre: Fiction/Horrow

Personal Rating: 4

**MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS**

From the back cover:

Rosemary Woodhouse is a housewife – young, healthy, blissfully happy. Her husband Guy is an actor – charismatic and ambitious. The spacious, sun-filled apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side is their dream home – a dream that turns into an unspeakable nightmare...

The elderly couple. The amulet. The Laundry room. The suicide. The dream. The doctor. The herbs. The anagram. The baby.

Rosmary’s baby.
Pray for it.

I guess I was so hyped up for this to be a terrifying book that I was slightly disappointed when it ended up being a “really good” suspenseful book. It’s pretty hard to write a truly terrifying book. I’ve only read a few in my days.

To keep it short Rosemary’s husbands agrees to have Rosemary impregnated by the devil during a Satanic ritual. He does this so that he can become successful in his career, but passes it off as if he’s doing it for them (at the end). As the reader you know what has happened, in a way, so the suspense comes from having to wait the nine months to see what actually “comes out” and then what ends up happening.

I enjoyed the read. I was hoping it would scare the “you know what” out of me. It didn’t. It is however a classic horror read and I know Levin is credited with giving “horror a new face”. One theme that is covered quite nicely is paranoia. Poor Rosemary “knows” what is going on, but since everyone is part of the satanic cult they are able to convince her she is just feeling “blue” or having “normal pregnancy pains” or that she is just being plain old silly! She even starts to believe she may be going crazy.

Rosemary’s Baby was a quick suspenseful read. You’ll enjoy it if you like horror or “classic” books.

“Suspense is beautifully intertwined with every incidents; the delicate line between belief and disbelief in faultlessly drawn.”—The New York Times

I picked this book as one of my reads for the Young Adult Challenge. Joy (who is hosting the challenge) and I had an interested chat today about whether it was really a young adult novel. I assumed since I found it from THE ULTIMATE TEEN READING LIST at teenreads.com that it was. Here is how they picked the books for the list.

One of our goals each month is to inspire you to read --- and to keep reading. We have found that required reading lists for school --- especially summer reading lists --- are not exactly inspiring. Thus we have created what we think is the Ultimate Teen Reading List --- more than 250 titles that we think are perfect choices for reading and discussing. Our dream is that schools will use this list to help them make their own for summer reading or, even better, suggest that students just read what they want from this list.

How did we create our list? We compiled entries from Teenreads.com readers who weighed in with their selections and we also asked our staffers for suggestions. Titles range from young adult books to books that we read on adult lists that we think would be enjoyed by teens.

So I would have to say that, no I don't think this is a young adult novel, but I do thing that many teens would enjoy reading this book.

Book Review: Cruel & Unusual

Author: Patricia Cornwell

Pages: 407

Genre: Fiction/Thriller

Personal Rating: 3/5

Awards: Gold Dagger Award

From the back cover:

When convicted killer Ronnie Joe Waddell is executed in Virginia's electric chair, he becomes what should be a routine postmortem case for Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta. But after Waddell's execution, the murders continue, as everyone connected to him begins to die-including a member of Scarpetta's staff. Then, when crucial records begin to disappear from her files, Scarpetta comes under fire for incompetence. Caught in a web of political intrigue, betrayed by those she trusted, Scarpetta must fight to free herself from murderous insinuations—and threats to her own life, To save her career, Scarpetta soon finds herself retracing Waddell's bloody footprints, following a trail that might lead to long—hidden secrets deep within the state government. Either the truth will set her free—or unleash upon her a punishment both cruel and unusual.

This book was OK! It was just your good old fashion satisfying read. Nothing spectacular. It was interesting enough to keep me going but no so great that I'm going to be running around recommending it to everyone I know. I wasn't able to figure out what was going on (so that was good) and everything was neatly wrapped up in the last few pages.

If you like thrillers/mystery/foresnic reads you'll enjoy this book. It isn't one of the best I've read but it sure isn't a dud!

Book Review: The Burn Journals

Author: Brent Runyon

Pages: 319

Genre: Non-Fiction/Memior

Personal Rating: 5/5

From the back cover:

In 1991, fourteen-year-old Brent Runyon came home from school, doused his bathrobe in gasoline, put it on, and lit a match.

He suffered third-degree burns over 85% of his body and spent the next year recovering in hospitals and rehab facilities. During that year of physical recovery, Runyon began to question what he'd done, undertaking the complicated journey from near-death back to high school, and from suicide back to the emotional mainstream of life.

In the tradition of Running with Scissors and Girl, Interrupted, The Burn Journals is a truly remarkable book about teenage despair and recovery.

Wow. I read this book in one day. Granted, I’m layed up with a broken foot but even so it wouldn’t have taken me long. Brent Runyon’s story is horrifically fascinating but yet not depressing.

“The Burn Jounrals describes a particular kind of youthful male desolation better than it has ever been described before, by anyone.” –Andrew Solomon author of the Noonday Demon.

That sounds about right. Brent allows you into the inner most aspects of his life and mind during the most difficult part of his life. I was embarrassed to be lying in bed feeling sorry for myself and the “pain” I felt in my ankle.

A very interesting aspect is the afterword where Brett discusses how he still struggles with depression and how he has still sometimes has had thought about killing himself (again). He goes on though to talk about how he has finally begun to realize he needs help, therapy and drug and that they are not signs of weakness or “bad things”. In reference to all those people who say “I don’t want to resort to drugs” as if some people have a choice. There is still so much ignorance about mental illness it make me sick!

I want to do this book justice with a FANTASTIC review but I just don’t know how. All I can say is that it is well worth the time to grab it and read it. You won’t be the same after reading it. I’m not.

Some things that stuck with me

• How good ice chips taste


• The look in the paramedic and his mom’s eyes and they took him out of the house after he lit himself on fire


• His struggles to go outside and have people look at him


• Joy at seeing his dog Rusty when he goes home


• He didn’t know why he did it

Book Review: Red Prophet (Tales of Alvin Maker II)

Author: Orson Scott Card

Pages: 320

Genre: Fiction/Sci Fi. & Fantasy/Epic/Series

Personal Rating: 2.5/5

From the back cover:

It's the 19th century, and Napoleon is in command of an army in Detroit. Andrew Jackson is a lawyer from Tenezzy, and William Henry Harrison is the self-appointed governor of Wobbish just east of the Mizzipy River. And somewhere up north, in a small town called Vigor Church, is a young boy named Alvin who is the seventh son of a seventh son, with the power to shape the world around him. These are the tales of Orson Scott Card's Alvin Maker, which takes place in an alternate American history where folk magic really works. And this is the story of the Red Prophet, where Alvin finds himself caught in a war between the Red men and the Whites on the American frontier.

Book II from Tales of Alvin Maker was not my cup of tea. If it wasn't the second book in a series for the Series Challenge and if I had not enjoyed Book I, I probably would have stopped reading. It's not that it was a terrible story, or horribly written (quite the opposite actually). It just wasn't my thing.

The focus of Book II is Alvin's relationship with the Red Prophet and Ta-Kumsaw (the Prophet's brother) and the impending war between the Whites and the Reds. I'm sure it is important for the foundation of the series but as a stand alone novel I found it boring. There was a lot of foreshadowing involved so I'm pretty sure you couldn't just skip this book and move on with the novel.

There were sections I found very interesting and hope to find more sections like those in the upcoming books. Alvin using his knack for healing, references to the Torch, who pulled the caul from Calvin's face when he was born. The prophet's visions of Alvin's future with the crystal towers were all topics i found interesting and wished were covered in more detailed.

I wouldn't abandon the series based on this book alone. It seems that many people really enjoyed book II. I'm however ready to move onto Book III.

Book Review: Flowers for Algernon

Author: Daniel Keyes

Pages: 311

Genre: Fiction/Sci Fi. & Fantasy

Personal Rating: 4/5

Awards: Nebula & Hugo

From the back cover:

Charlie Gordon is about to embark upon an unprecedented journey. Born with an unusually low IQ, he has been chosen as the perfect subject for an experimental surgery that researchers hope will increase his intelligence-a procedure that has already been highly successful when tested on a lab mouse named Algernon.

As the treatment takes effect, Charlie's intelligence expands until it surpasses that of the doctors who engineered his metamorphosis. The experiment appears to be a scientific breakthrough of paramount importance, until Algernon suddenly deteriorates. Will the same happen to Charlie?

What a unique and interesting book! This story follows Charlie, a mentally retarded 30 something who has an operation performed (on his brain) to increase his intelligence. Most of the story is related through Charlie's progress reports as he sees events unfolding.

As Charlie's intelligence increases, so does his memory. He begins to remember his childhood and how he came to be "abandoned" by his family and to understand why he has sexual issues. He also starts to questions the friends he used to have since they used to laugh at him and make him do silly things (since he didn't know better). This part of the story is sad. The realization of how we/some treat mentally retarded individuals.

This book opens up so many ethical and moral questions related to experimentation, the betterment of society and the worth of an individual. Who determines that worth?

If you haven't read this one I would definitely add it to your list!

Book Review: The Silver Rose

Author: Susan Carroll

Pages: 515

Genre: Fiction/Historical Romance

Personal Rating: 3.5/5

From the back cover:

From Brittany’s fog-shrouded forests to the elegant dark heart of Paris’s royal court, one woman must challenge a country’s destiny–and her own dangerous fate.

France, 1585. She is the youngest and most powerful of the “Sisters of Faire Isle,” women known far and wide for their extraordinary mystical abilities. Skilled in healing and able to forecast the future of those around her, Miri Cheney has returned to her ancestral home to take refuge from a land devastated by civil war–and to grieve for her family, driven to exile. But she cannot hide from the formidable new power threatening to seize control of France from the dread “Dark Queen,” Catherine de Medici–a diabolical woman known only as the Silver Rose. Miri has no choice but to turn to the one man she distrusts as much as she desires: Simon Aristide, the charismatic witch-finder who is now himself the hunted, and who has reluctantly made an unholy pact with Catherine. Miri must defy throne and family to save all that she loves most–and command a future greater than she could ever imagine.

Vibrant with stunning historical detail, alive with characters as richly passionate as they are compelling, The Silver Rose is a sweeping, exquisitely wrought tale from a mesmerizing storyteller.

This novel was different from what I would normally choose to read for myself. I was expecting something along the lines of “The Other Boleyn Girl” but it was different from that. Not bad different, just different. I also found the back cover description to be not quite accurate to what actually happens in the book. Doesn’t change that I really liked the story but it alludes to a story that doesn’t really happen “that way”. It states that Miri will “command a future greater than she could ever imagine.” Huh??? Where? What commanding future did I miss? A little melodramatic on the back cover in my opinion.

It turns out that I started with the 3rd book in the series. So I may have enjoyed this book even more had I read the two prior to this one. Those books would be “The Dark Queen” and “The Courtesan”. Both of which I have, I just didn’t realize they were a series until it was too late. Bummer.

This novel had a little bit of everything; magic, romance, history, action, animals, family, different cities, betrayal, witches, queens. It was a simple, quick, interesting read. Something nice and light to read between those heavier more serious reads. A good recommendation for the type of book it is. Don’t try to make it something more. I’m looking forward to going backward and reading the two books that came before this one.

Spring Reading Challenge

CHALLENGE COMPLETED 4.12.08

1. The Silver Rose (Susan Carroll)
2. Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes)
3. Rosemary's Baby (Ira Levin)
4. The Messenger (Lois Lowry)
5. Cruel and Unusual (Patricia Cornwell)
6. God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy)
7. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
8. The Boy In Striped Pajamas (John Boyne)
9. The Burn Journals (Brent Runyon)

These are all from one series (Tales of Alvin Maker: Orson Scott Card) for the Series Challenge. I think she is going to add on more months to the challenge so I won't need to read ALL of these! (yet)

10. Red Prophet (Orson Scott Card)
11. Prentice Alvin (Orson Scott Card)

Alvin Journeyman
Heartfire
The Crystal City

Spring Reading Challenge