Robert Rave’s new novel, “Waxed,” expected this August, is a realistic story about three very different sisters whose paths cross at their older sister’s famous high-end salon, Impresarios-a well-known celebrity hot spot to get waxed (and not necessarily the legs…) .
Throughout the book, Rave gives an outstanding description of the Manhattan and Brooklyn lifestyles. One who is very familiar with these places will notice that Rave’s visualizations are done to perfection. Chapter one right away, gives the reader the sense that they too, are riding the subway on that hot summer morning with Anna to Impresarios.
Rave is not only spot-on with Big Apple, but he also knows his fashion. Sex and the City should watch out. His three main protagonists (not so much Anna at first) can certainly rival Carrie and her gal pals. Rave name drops some greats: Versace, Armani, Valentino, and Gucci, to name a few, and dresses his characters wonderfully, both inside and out.
Anna, the mom who is by no means a fashionista, is very unlike her ‘cooler’ sisters. She knows her daughter would rather hang out with her aunts, and decides to work with them for some extra cash. It is a shock to reenter the workforce and join the waxing game, and Anna learns that while she has been working so hard to keep up with Carolina, she may have neglected her teen daughter, and younger daughter Ariel, who is the key to a family shocker, one Anna tries hard to conceal from her new friend JJ, and caused a riff with her ex-husband Christopher.
Carolina runs her business with the utmost professionalism; often times forgetting she is related to some of her employees. She’s bossy, independent, and does her best to keep her salon’s fancy customers happy at all costs. She not only runs the show, but also has a product in the making for Sephora. On top of her professional life, however, things get a bit complicated with her young boyfriend Ron, and an old flame that comes back into her life.
Sofia, the newly married younger sister, is hot for her husband. Rave designs her as a fashionable, lovable character that is head over heals for her steamy new hubby. She tries to maintain the bickering between her two older sisters, and yearns for them to all be closer. At the salon, she finds a new “bf†(that’s best friend, but you be the judge…) in her new gay client Dennis. With her new buddy accompanying her to clubs and the New York nightlife, she realizes that her new friend may not be what she is looking for.
Overall, Rave’s book is brilliant. Its setting is written beautifully, and he has clearly done his homework in the fashion department. Each woman is, in her own right, written with flaws that can’t be fixed with wax, but maybe the adventure they find in working together, can teach them that perfection may not exist in the ways they thought. Rave spins in some life lessons in this new read. It must be picked up, and enjoyed.
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