The Kabul Beauty School - Deborah Rodriguez

Hi Guys! 

It's been a while since I posted - had a lot of reading to do!

This book was one that I picked up in Waterstones as it was a part of a buy one get one half price deal and it had a pretty cover! 

The book is actually an autobiography of the authors time in Kabul, however when I started reading this I thought it was a book of fiction due to the way that it was written, it wasn’t until I got to the photographs in the middle of the book that I realise she was retelling her personal experiences.

The book tells us each women's story interwoven within each other and the author does a good job of drawing us in to each story - as I said I did think that it was a book of fiction so I don’t think that I was appreciating the bravery of these women and the things that they were going through.

Once I got to the point in the book where I understood that we were reading about real women and real events it became much easier to connect with the book. I particularly enjoyed? Reading the story of Roshanna who is hiding a secret of not being a virgin due to a failed marriage and events in her past. I did think that there was something lacking and possibly Rodriguez could have delved slightly deeper with each of these women as they each had a moving story to tell and the author tends to focus too much on her personal life and can come across at some points as slightly ignorant.

The most positive point of this book was the amount of information it provided on daily life in Afghanistan and although the writing isn’t the best, Rodriguez went to Afghanistan as a hairdresser and the style of the book does make it feel like you’re having a chat with your hairdresser!

I think this book is definitely worth a read if only for the interesting insight that it provides on life after Taliban, don’t go into this book expecting a deep and insightful autobiography as I said it reads like story book and after reading the authors non-fiction book (which I will eventually write about) the style of writing is the same and I don’t think I’m the only one who will have been surprised to find out this wasn’t a work of fiction.

I’d give this book 5 out of ten.