Reading Rainbow

The thing about books is that even if I am not remotely interested in the material, if the writing is good, I'm hooked. Remember Seabiscuit? Eat Pray Love was so well-written that I immediately disregarded any bad press I had heard about the book. I guess the author was on Oprah and didn't present well. In this book, the author travels to Italy, India, and Indonesia in the space of a year. She is on a spiritual journey. I like reading about spiritual journeys and I wish I could undertake one by myself for a whole year to foreign places. But that's another post.

Ann Brashares wrote the Traveling Pants series. This is her first book for adults and is set on Fire Island in the Atlantic. The book featured two women and man in their early twenties, so it wasn't that much of a departure for the author. The book was an easy read and not completely trashy, but not worth buying. Check it out from the library if you want to read it.

I'm linked to Ilene on Goodreads and she recommended this book. I'm glad I read it. It is a young adult sci-fi novel about a future world where people turn from ugly to pretty when they are sixteen. In the book, everyone who is twelve is sent away because they are too ugly to look at. I think the author has got it wrong. I think kids start getting ugly sooner than 12. In my family we peak at about two. Anyway, I liked the book and I'm looking forward to the next in the series. A dissenting opinion was offered by my teenaged sister, Camille. She said that The Giver by Lois Lowry or Brave New World by Aldous Huxley were the same story but better.

My MIL gave me Kabul Beauty School a few weeks ago. It is a memoir of a hairdresser who started a beauty school in Afghanistan. I was hesitant to read KBS because I am still scarred by the sorrowful Kite Runner but I'm glad I gave it a chance. I enjoyed it on a few levels:

• I learned about beauty rituals of Afghan women. Like how kohl is applied or how to put perm rods in. See? I even know what a perm rod is. I'm a beauty tard.
• I got a feel for the culture of Kabul from an outsider's perspective. I like Afghanistan a lot better now that I know about it.
• The author, Deborah Rodriguez (who had an excellent ghostwriter), makes some really crazy choices, like marrying an Afghan man that she doesn't know. Or helping a girl fake her virginity.

I realize I am in a reading rut and I'm happy to be here. Perhaps someday I'll read a book by a man about a man. Don't hold your breath.