Kabul Beauty School

Kabul Beauty School by Deborah Rodriguez

This book was interesting to read, especially since I read it just after finishing A Thousand Splendid Suns. The author describes her struggles and joys in creating a beauty school (one of the only places women are allowed to work and socialize) in Kabul. Rodriguez’s passion for her work and for the women she is helping is admirable, especially given the difficulties she encounters from the Afghan government and the dangerous conditions she works in. Her willingness to journey from the United States to Afghanistan is quite astonishing. In some ways, however, reading this book reminded me of an article I’d recently read describing the literary differences between memoirs and works of fiction. The author of the article felt that works presented as memoirs were held to a different literary standard, as “raw” and “gritty” writing was somehow more permissible from an untrained writer, while true works of fiction are expected to be more refined. This book definitely falls in the former category in terms of writing style and narrative flow.