Brava’s Staff love to read more than hair and fashion magazines! We also love sharing our favorites with our clients. So we have decided to make an online reading club - just e-mail us your favorite and your rating and we will add it to our list. LisaMike@mchsi.com We rate on a scale from 1- 5 stars. 5 being the most awesome read!
Veil of Roses 
 Author: Laura Fitzgerald

Raised amidst the confines of Iranian society, young Tamila Soroush escapes the oppression of Iran for the freedom of America, enjoying her everyday acts of rebellion against her background and capturing her new life through the lens of her camera, all the while searching for a husband who can prevent her return home. 
Ratings:
Lisa Hawkins




Kabul Beauty School 
 Author: Deborah Rodriguez
Soon after the fall of the Taliban, in 2001, Deborah Rodriguez went to Afghanistan as part of a humanitarian aid group. Surrounded by people whose skills--as doctors, nurses, and therapists--seemed eminently more practical than her own, Rodriguez, a hairdresser and mother from Michigan, despaired of being of any real use. Yet she found she had a gift for befriending Afghans, and once her profession became known she was eagerly sought out by Westerners desperate for a good haircut and by Afghan women, who have a long and proud tradition of running their own beauty salons. Thus the idea for the Kabul Beauty School was born. Within that small haven, the line between teacher and student quickly blurred as these vibrant women shared with Rodriguez their stories and their hearts, ultimately giving her the strength to leave her own unhealthy marriage and allow herself to love again, Afghan style.
Ratings:
Lisa Hawkins




The Double Bind 
 Author: Chris Bohjalian

Six years after a brutal assault that left her physically and mentally damaged, Laurel Estabrook is going through photographs taken by a deceased homeless man and is shocked to discover a photograph of herself on a bicycle only hours before the attack. As she obsessively investigates the homeless man's life, from his childhood wealth to death-bed destitution, Laurel becomes increasingly psychologically unstable--perhaps this has something to do with her belief that believes she was born in "West Egg," the fictional home of Jay Gatsby. The mystery of THE DOUBLE BIND unfurls on multiple levels, and bestseller Chris Bohjalian keeps the reader in a state of bedevilment until the last shocking twist.
Ratings:
Rhonda Reiss
Lisa Hawkins




The Kindness of Strangers
Author: Katrina Kittle 
Young widow and mother of two Sarah Laden becomes the foster mother to Jordan, a neighborhood boy who has survived a terrible tragedy, but when the delicate balance that holds her family together begins to crumble, the Ladens will all face truths about themselves and one another.
Ratings:
Rhonda Reiss
Lisa Hawkins




Cellophane 
Author: Marie Arana

Unexpected consequences are the result for an American engineer, who constructs a paper factory in the middle of the Amazon rain forest, as a plague of truth affects his entire family, in a debut novel by the author of American Chica.
Ratings:
Lisa Hawkins




Savages 
 Author: Shirley Conran
Bizarre events force five corporate wives--Silvana, Suzy, Patty, Carey, and Annie--to live by their wits, strength, and courage in a hostile jungle world.
Ratings:
Lisa Hawkins
Paris Sturt



Water For Elephants 
Author Sara Gruen
Set during the Great Depression of the 1930s, Water for Elephants tells the story of a young man who leaves his life as a Cornell University veterinary student after losing both his parents in a car accident and jumps onto a train that happens to house the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. After a short confrontation with Blackie, a bouncer that stops stowaways, and Camel (a limp old worker) promising him a job and an audience with Uncle Al (The Ringmaster) Jacob decides to stay aboard the train. Since his parents have died in an automobile accident, and he has not a home to call his own, he decides to remain with the circus. Jacob is employed as the show’s veterinarian and he faces a number of challenges in dealing with the head trainer, August, while also learning how to function in the hierarchy of the circus and falling in love with August's wife, Marlena.
Ratings:
Lisa Hawkins
Erica Wildinger
Paris Sturt



Skinny Bitch
 Author: Rory Freedman & Kim Barnouin
Skinny Bitch is a sleeper hit diet book written by Rory Freedman, a former modeling agent and Kim Barnouin, a former model.
Ratings:
Lisa Hawkins
Miranda Meyers



Eat, Pray, Love 
Author: Elizabeth Gilbert
During the interminable wait for her divorce, Gilbert accepts a magazine assignment in Bali, where she meets a ninth-generation medicine man “whose resemblance to the Star Wars character Yoda cannot be exaggerated.” He evaluates her palm, forecasting her return to Bali --- a prediction that resurfaces when she hatches an escape plan from pain: “to explore the art of pleasure in Italy, the art of devotion in India, and, in Indonesia, the art of balancing the two.” 
Ratings:
Lisa Hawkins



The Kite Runner 
Author: Khaled Hosseini 
The Kite Runner tells the story of Amir, a boy from the Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul, who is haunted by the guilt of betraying his childhood friend Hassan, the son of his father's Hazara servant. The story is set against a backdrop of tumultuous events, from the fall of the monarchy in Afghanistan through the Soviet invasion, the mass exodus of refugees to Pakistan and the United States, and the rise of the Taliban regime.
Ratings:
Lisa Hawkins
Erica Wildinger
Paris Sturt



Ten Thousand Sorrows
Author: Elizabeth Kim
In a transcendent account of one woman's refusal to yield to the oppressive dictates of religion and custom in two vastly different cultures, Kim traces her evolution from a traumatized childhood in postwar Korea to her emotional awakening as a young abused wife in America. Currently a journalist based in California, she re-creates her uncle and grandfather's gruesome "honor killing" of her rebellious mother, who returned to her village with the baby of an American GI--a grim event that launched Kim's painful life as a tainted "half-breed" in a society that reveres its ancestry and traditions. Eventually, Kim was left at a Christian orphanage where disinterested American missionaries provided a steady diet of hymns, biblical parables, small bowls of rice and little else. Desperate to be loved despite her forbidden mixed-race heritage, Kim hoped her fortune would change when she was adopted by a white, fundamentalist American couple. However, their pious tyranny was matched only by the harsh, racist abuse Kim endured at school from her classmates, described in simple heartrending prose. Seeking to escape, she married the young deacon at her parents' church, who turned out to be an abusive schizophrenic. Fortunately, Kim avoids melodrama in chronicling her flight with her daughter from her tormentor, instead rendering her arduous climb to emotional and spiritual renewal with unflinching honesty. 

Ratings:
Lisa Hawkins



Angelas Ashes 
Frank Mccourt
Angela’s Ashes is a memoir by Irish author Frank McCourt, and tells the story of his childhood in Brooklyn and Ireland. It was published in 1996 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.
Ratings:
Lisa Hawkins




“Tis" 
Author: Frank Mccourt
Ratings:
Lisa Hawkins




Memoirs Of A Geisha 
Author: Arthur Golden
Memoirs of a Geisha is a novel by Arthur Golden, published in 1997. The novel, told in first-person view, tells the fictional story of a geisha working in Kyoto, Japan, before and after World War II.
Ratings:
Lisa Hawkins
Paris Sturt




The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band 
Author: Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars, Nikki Sixx, and Neil Strauss (contributor) 
The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band is a collaborative autobiography written by Mötley Crüe, Neil Strauss, and The "Mötley" managers, where they write about the members of Mötley Crüe. First published in 2001, it chronicles the formation of the band, their rise to fame and their decadent lifestyles. They write of the highs and lows of their lives with rare candour.
Ratings:
Lisa Hawkins
Paris Sturt
Jodi Jordan




The Other Boleyn Girl 
Author : Philippa Gregory
The Other Boleyn Girl is a historical fiction novel written by British author Philippa Gregory, based on the life of 16th-century aristocrat Mary Boleyn. Reviews were mixed; some said it was a brilliantly claustrophobic look at the palace life in Tudor England, while others weren't convinced.
Ratings:
Erica Wildinger




Five Quarters Of The Orange
Author: Joann Harris
When Framboise Simon returns to a small village on the banks of the Loire, the locals do not recognize her as the daughter of the infamous Mirabelle Dartigen -- the woman they still hold responsible for the terrible tragedy that took place during the German occupation decades before. Although Framboise hopes for a new beginning, she quickly discovers that past and present are inextricably intertwined. Nowhere is this truth more apparent than in the scrapbook of recipes she has inherited from her dead mother.

Using this book, Framboise recreates her mother's dishes, which she serves in her small creperie. And yet as she studies the scrapbook -- searching for clues to unlock the contradiction between her mother's sensuous love of food and often cruel demeanor -- she begins to recognize a deeper meaning behind Mirabelle's cryptic scribblings. Within the journal's tattered pages lies the key to what actually transpired the summer Framboise was nine years old, when the Germans occupied their town.

Rich and dark, Five Quarters of the Orange is a novel of mothers and daughters, of the past and the present, of resisting and succumbing. 
Ratings:
Erica Wildinger



The Dalai Lama's Book of Love and Compassion
The Dalai Lama is one of the most renowned and beloved spiritual leaders in the world. In this small book, intended to speak to everyone, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist alike, he simply and clearly addresses the concerns of modern life.
Ratings:
Marisol Rivera




World's Best Kept Beauty Secrets: What Really Works In Beauty, Diet & Fashion
Author: Diane Irons

A former model and confidante to the stars, Irons demystifies the hype surrounding costly products and fads of today’s cutthroat beauty industry. From a supermodel’s tips on disguising breakouts in an instant to dropping weight quickly and safely for big events, The World’s Best-Kept Beauty Secrets is a must-have shelf reference for women everywhere.
Ratings:
Marisol Rivera




The Heroin Diaries: A Year In The Life Of A Shattered Rock Star
Author: Nikki Sixx

The co-founder of the rock band Motley Crue presents a candid account of his own descent into the hell of drug addiction, describing the impact of heroin on his life and the band.

Though glam-rockers Motley Crue had their heyday in the 1980s, the band has managed, both together and individually, to stay close to the spotlight ever since, even in the realm of the written word. The 2001 Crue biography THE DIRT was a bestseller, as was Tommy Lee’s 2005 tell-all, TOMMYLAND. This 2007 release allows bassist Nikki Sixx to tell his own story, centered on one harrowing year of heroin and cocaine addiction, and the slow climb back to sobriety. The book is presented as extensive journal excerpts that chronicle the author’s daily life as an addict, with present-day commentary by Sixx and his friends and loved ones. This unique story-telling format helps readers get inside the mind of a substance abuser, and come to understand the person behind the wild rock-star persona.
Ratings:
Lisa Hawkins
Jodi Jordan




The Other Adonis
Author: Frank Deford

New York psychiatrist Nina Winston becomes convinced that her married patient, Floyd Buckingham, and his mistress, stock analyst Constance Rawlings, are the reincarnation of a couple depicted in a Rubens painting. As she is drawn into the strange case, Nina is confronted with an ancient murder mystery.
Ratings:
Lola Miles





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