Sunday, November 11, 2012

Book 27: Sold

Incredible. Absolutely Incredible. This book is broadcast as a teen book - it's already won so many literature awards. I read it in one sitting - it was incredible. I know that I have said "incredible" three - technically four times - but I cannot help it. This book kept me in it's tight grasp the entire time that I read it.  I literally could not put it down. It reminded me slightly of The House on Mango Street. A book that dealt with such strong subjects, but sent through a child's eyes and through a child's perspective. There were moments where I literally held my breath. I didn't know that I was holding my breath until - I felt myself start reading. I literally read it on the subway station while I went from bourough to bourough to visit my girlfriends. All this to say, I couldn't stop reading this book. I found myself in a place where I literally didn't want it to be over. I kept trying to think of ways that I could savor the book, but I couldn't sit for two seconds on the train without needing to open the book and find out what is happening to the ladies, the ordinary boy, the tea boy, and the American.

Book Description

Lakshmi is a thirteen-year-old girl who lives with her family in a small hut on a mountain in Nepal. Though she is desperately poor, her life is full of simple pleasures, like playing hopscotch with her best friend from school, and having her mother brush her hair by the light of an oil lamp. But when the harsh Himalayan monsoons wash away all that remains of the family’s crops, Lakshmi’s stepfather says she must leave home and take a job to support her family.

He introduces her to a glamorous stranger who tells her she will find her a job as a maid in the city. Glad to be able to help, Lakshmi journeys to India and arrives at “Happiness House” full of hope. But she soon learns the unthinkable truth: she has been sold into prostitution. An old woman named Mumtaz rules the brothel with cruelty and cunning. She tells Lakshmi that she is trapped there until she can pay off her family’s debt—then cheats Lakshmi of her meager earnings so that she can never leave. Lakshmi’s life becomes a nightmare from which she cannot escape.

Still, she lives by her mother’s words—Simply to endure is to triumph—and gradually, she forms friendships with the other girls that enable her to survive in this terrifying new world. Then the day comes when she must make a decision—will she risk everything for a chance to reclaim her life? Written in spare and evocative vignettes, this powerful novel renders a world that is as unimaginable as it is real, and a girl who not only survives but triumphs.

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