Hello!
Thanks once again for returning to my blog! Now this review is about 'The little coffee shop of Kabul' by Deborah Rodriguez. I found this book very interesting. Some reviews I have read on the internet said that they didn't enjoy the story. They also didn't like how it was 'chick-lit' and believed it was generally a bad book.
However for me, after reading the Kite Runner, which is based on Afghanistan, I decided I wanted to read this book. Now, the author is not from Afghanistan, despite this, she has lived there and so knows what it is like to live there during the War. I found the book was thought-provoking. Not only did I learn about life in Kabul from the perspective of a westerner (as before I had only read books by authors whose main characters were from Kabul) but I learnt a lot about the country as well. I thought the plot was good, and believable, however at some points I found it a bit irrelevant to the story line. Saying this however, I did really enjoy what happened in the book and how all the characters linked together to form a huge friendship. I also liked how the book was set around women and their rights, as there is a lot of gender inequality in Kabul.
I did find the book was really intriguing due to the different backgrounds, nationalities and lives of the main characters in the book. I think that the book is aimed at children more so than adults and hence this is why there are some bad reviews for this book. I really enjoyed it and liked the message it conveyed about life in a war-struck country and how five women can change the lives of so many others.
The only thing I did not like about this book was how Sunny, who owns the coffee shop, has a boyfriend and a friend who she becomes to love, at the same time! This confused me and I did not really understand why she had not broken up with Tommy while she liked Jack?
Having said this, I did really enjoy this book, I liked all the characters and their background information. I liked how they all came together and how it was happy at the end. I would recommend this book, however not to adults, to children and young adults .I would recommend to those who are interest
ed in reading more Afghanistan - related books, to read those by Khaled Hosseini, I have written a blog about some of my favourite books of his! Click here to read it!
I will definitely be reading the next books that Rodriguez has written. Who was your favourite character in this book? Mine was probably Sunny or Yazmina. I liked Sunny due to her involvement in the coffee shop and also Yazmina, due to everything she had been through.
Thank you for reading this! Did you like this book or not? Please tell me in the comments or through my Instagram - @bethlucyblogs - I post regularly and hold polls on my story! As well, if you enjoyed this blog then please like it or share it! Thank you!
Beth Lucy