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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Extraordinary Debut from a Talented Writer, November 30, 2010
This review is from: Lipstick in Afghanistan (Paperback)
When looking at a magazine photograph of a starving family in Rwanda, young Elsa, living in Boston with her mother and disabled sister, vows to someday become someone who can help the needy people of this world. When she turns seventeen, her life suddenly turns around to follow that track when an ER nurse in a Boston Hospital helps her to understand the circle of life when Elsa's baby sister dies. The continuing friendship between Elsa and the nurse blossoms into a mentor relationship, and soon Elsa herself becomes a talented ER nurse assisting with surgical and crisis trauma injuries. When Elsa's mother dies in her sleep one night, she suddenly remembers the magazine photo she found fascinating as a child and begins to create a plan to follow her dream of one day helping desperate people. In the wake of 9/11, Elsa volunteers as an overseas Aide nurse, taking up a position in a small village in Afghanistan that will use her nursing skills in their local clinic. Not totally thinking things through in regards to just where she is going and what dangers may lie there, Elsa embarks on the journey of her life as she soon integrates herself in the lives of a village full of kind and loving people. She immerses herself in learning the language and culture with new Afghani friends to help her, and within a short time becomes one with the people of Afghanistan. All is not so rosy though. Elsa has touched down to the world of the Taliban where terror is instilled in the minds of the local people that hover in fear each night as they lay down to sleep. When the Taliban come to Elsa's village, she is awakened in shock to the reality and danger she has put herself into. With the help of her new friends and with the assistance of American Soldiers on patrol, Elsa must dig deep into her soul to find her heart and place in a world of war and violence. This is an extraordinary, beautiful, and poignant story of courage and heartache, love and renewal, faith and healing, among simple people who yearn for peace. Within this gem of a novel, you will find tender romance, newfound friends that bond for life, and will learn the ways of the Afghani as they teach Elsa to cook, pray, sew up their injured loved ones and bury their dead. Marriages are arranged, feasts and celebrations abound, babies are born, and brides are adorned with henna and veils. The reader becomes an eyewitness to the glorious kinship between two unlikely women from faraway places that share common ground all based on their love of lipstick! You will laugh, you will learn, you will worry and you will cry, as Roberta takes Elsa into a world unknown that becomes home. All book club discussion groups should bring this to the top of the list for there is much to discuss and share here. For a debut novel, Roberta Gately's Lipstick in Afghanistan should easily be climbing the bestseller lists at a rapid pace. Sensational book!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Why Third Person?, December 26, 2010
This review is from: Lipstick in Afghanistan (Paperback)
Lipstick in Afghanistan by Roberta Gately In a nutshell, Elsa Murphy, the main character, trains to be a nurse, accepts a position in Afghanistan, and escapes her dreary life in Boston. I applaud any new author who has the stamina and courage to stick with the written words long enough to create a world readers can immerse themselves into, if only for a few pages. Kudos to Ms. Gately for that accomplishment. Unfortunately, the third person narrative drove me away from what should have been a very compelling story. I would have appreciated a memoir, with real emotions being told, much better than this unreliable third person. There was very little told about the reason for the trip to begin with: day-to-day nursing in a war torn area. Why the author chose this format instead of a memoir is a loss to this curious reader. I was never quite sure if Elsa was in Afghan to truly help or if it was just a means to escape her boring Boston environs and it sounded exciting to a girl who hadn't "lived" much and didn't know what she was getting into. The book does convey the bonds of female friendship and the tenacity of the Afghan people. The lipstick in the title is the talisman that gives the main character her strength, her warrior (?) spirit. The average (mainstream) reader's group would probably find things to discuss but I would say definitely not for the discriminating reader. Find more about this book at Simon & Schuster's website.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Flat & unbelievable- Not the book for me., January 22, 2012
Lipstick in Afghanistan by Roberta Gatley is the story of a Elsa, an ER nurse in her early 20s who wants to make a difference in the world. She is accepted as a relief nurse with an international organization and sent to Afghanistan in 2002 to help run the local hospital. Drama ensues. I had a few problems with this book. And the bulk of my review will dwell on what I didn't think worked very well. But I do want to say that this book isn't bad. There is a market for this book, and I know people who would love reading this book. I, unfortunately, just wasn't one of them. But the book does have merit, and there were times when it was plain to see that the author had lived among these people and has an emotional attachment to their culture. So, there are positive things to this book, and you won't be wasting your life if you decide to read it. However, I struggled with this book. It's an easy read, but I found my self speed reading, hoping to reach the end faster. I find it very hard to enjoy reading the book when I strongly dislike the main character. Elsa was whiny, annoying and naive. There's a part of the story, after she's been in Afghanistan for a while when she tries to convince her friend, Parween (and the other narrator of the story) that growing up poor in the poor part of Boston means she understands all the suffering any of the Afghanis have experienced. She doesn't stop to think, and parts of other people's personalities rub off on her, (like Parween's impulsive thoughtlessness). She's incredibly self-centered, focusing only on things as they touch her. She can't imagine that life is bad in Afghanistan, or that other places are dangerous, or that her town is dangerous because she hasn't personally been exposed to it. If she doesn't see it, it doesn't really exist. It's like people who see something bad on the news but think, 'that would never happen to me.' It got really old really fast. I won't go into detail about the other characters, although I definitely could. There were a lot of people in the story, and all of them were rather black and white. They are good or bad. They are victims or fighters. They are happy or miserable. They are helpful or hurtful. And none of them felt real. I've heard a lot of people complain about authors telling rather than showing. This is one of the few times when I desperately agree. I can normally overlook that if I'm really enjoying the story, but in this case it made me want to pull my hair out. Everything I knew about any of these characters was because I was told that's how it supposed to be, not because the author just let them be that way. I didn't believe in anyone. I didn't believe their actions were reasonable or logical, and I didn't believe the situations they were in were realistic. I also felt that the author was missing that happy median on details. We were either given very few, very sparse details about events, or overloaded with them. Some detailed accounts, such as the wedding ceremony was interesting, but most were not. It was just too much. The writing felt forced and murky and kind of like she was trying just a little bit too hard. And the lipstick... I know this is a personal thing but I missed the lipstick point. I know that the author shares Elsa's fondness and need for lipstick, but I don't get it. And, there were times when I felt that the lipstick was more important than the story, and that the author relied on the lipstick to carry the story forward. It just didn't feel right to me. Like I said before, I can see that this will be a book many people could enjoy. It just wasn't for me. Maybe someone else will have better luck.
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