I downloaded this using the google books app on my ipad, but I was very disappointed (in the app not the book). It always wanted to be portrait despite the fact that I always read in Landscape – I don’t think I could take notes like I can in the Kindle app and there was no dictionary.
Anyway, this book was selected for book club with the idea being that it was a quick and easy read (February is short month after all). It certainly made me think about Afghanistan and what life is like for women.
Here is the blurb …
After hard luck and some bad choices, Sunny has finally found a place to call home – it just happens to be in the middle of a war zone. The thirty-eight-year-old American’s pride and joy is the Kabul Coffee House, where she brings hospitality to the expatriates, misfits, missionaries, and mercenaries who stroll through its doors. She’s especially grateful that the busy days allow her to forget Tommy, the love of her life, who left her in pursuit of money and adventure.
Working alongside Sunny is the maternal Halajan, who vividly recalls the days before the Taliban and now must hide a modern romance from her ultra traditional son – who, unbeknownst to her, is facing his own religious doubts. Into the café come Isabel, a British journalist on the trail of a risky story; Jack, who left his family back home in Michigan to earn ‘danger pay’ as a consultant; and Candace, a wealthy and well-connected American whose desire to help threatens to cloud her judgment.
When Yazmina, a young Afghan from a remote village, is kidnapped and left on a city street pregnant and alone, Sunny welcomes her into the café and gives her a home – but Yazmina hides a secret that could put all their lives in jeopardy. As this group of men and women discover that there’s more to one another than meets the eye, they’ll form an unlikely friendship that will change not only their own lives but the lives of an entire country.
Brimming with Deborah Rodriguez’s remarkable gift for depicting the nuances of life in Kabul, and filled with vibrant characters that readers will truly care about, A Cup of Friendship is the best kind of fiction – full of heart yet smart and thought-provoking.
It was a quick and easy read with some important points to make. However, I did find myself doing other jobs rather than reading it. I just kept waiting for something awful to happen and consequently didn’t want to keep going. Bit of a spoiler now, awful things do happen, but not as bad as you’re expecting.
For me the best part of this book is reading about life in Afghanistan – seeing a different culture in a new and sympathetic light. Read this novel for the plot and location.
Here are some more reviews …
http://pamelasbookspot.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/little-coffee-shop-of-kabul-by-deborah.html