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Ms.Whitehead's Reviews > Sold
Sold
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by
AM I PRETTY?
In the days after the hugging man leaves, I consider myself in the mirror. My plain self, not the self wearing lipstick and eyeliner and a flimsy dress.
Sometimes I see a girl who is growing into womanhood. Other days I see a girl growing old before her time.
It doesn't matter, of course. Because no one will ever want me now.
Lakshmi is thirteen-years-old. She lives a simple, albeit impoverished, existence with with her Ama, infant sibling and gambling-addicted stepfather in a Nepalese village buried deep in the Himalayan mountains. She is a loving and obedient daughter and the best student in her class, but when a monsoon comes, devastating her family's home and the crops they rely on for sustenance, her simple life takes a catastrophic turn. In order to compensate for the family's crippling loss, Lakshmi's stepfather - who likens little girls to goats, "Good as long as she gives you milk and butter..but not worth crying over when it's time to make stew" - decides to sell Lakshmi away to a Calcutta brothel for the paltry sum of four hundred dollars.
Early in the novel, Lakshmi's Ama gives her this warning: "it is a woman's fate to suffer (and) simply to endure is to triumph." Told through a series of spare, free-verse vignettes, Lakshim's story is devastating, and yet somehow she endures, which - considering the myriad horrors she experiences - is most definitely a triumph.
Before writing Sold, Patricia McCormick traveled to Nepal and India, interviewing both the families who sell their children (some intentionally, some because they were tricked by unscrupulous traffickers) and the children who have been sold into the trade. Thanks to her first-hand interviews and observations, Sold - although fiction - feels intensely real. Lakshmi's story could be that of any one of the 400,000 children currently in bondage, working off their bloated debts in Indian brothels, and it was that realism - mixed with a beautifully simplistic style of storytelling - that led me to devour this novel in one sitting, despite the fact that every single page found a new way to break my heart.
In the days after the hugging man leaves, I consider myself in the mirror. My plain self, not the self wearing lipstick and eyeliner and a flimsy dress.
Sometimes I see a girl who is growing into womanhood. Other days I see a girl growing old before her time.
It doesn't matter, of course. Because no one will ever want me now.
Lakshmi is thirteen-years-old. She lives a simple, albeit impoverished, existence with with her Ama, infant sibling and gambling-addicted stepfather in a Nepalese village buried deep in the Himalayan mountains. She is a loving and obedient daughter and the best student in her class, but when a monsoon comes, devastating her family's home and the crops they rely on for sustenance, her simple life takes a catastrophic turn. In order to compensate for the family's crippling loss, Lakshmi's stepfather - who likens little girls to goats, "Good as long as she gives you milk and butter..but not worth crying over when it's time to make stew" - decides to sell Lakshmi away to a Calcutta brothel for the paltry sum of four hundred dollars.
Early in the novel, Lakshmi's Ama gives her this warning: "it is a woman's fate to suffer (and) simply to endure is to triumph." Told through a series of spare, free-verse vignettes, Lakshim's story is devastating, and yet somehow she endures, which - considering the myriad horrors she experiences - is most definitely a triumph.
Before writing Sold, Patricia McCormick traveled to Nepal and India, interviewing both the families who sell their children (some intentionally, some because they were tricked by unscrupulous traffickers) and the children who have been sold into the trade. Thanks to her first-hand interviews and observations, Sold - although fiction - feels intensely real. Lakshmi's story could be that of any one of the 400,000 children currently in bondage, working off their bloated debts in Indian brothels, and it was that realism - mixed with a beautifully simplistic style of storytelling - that led me to devour this novel in one sitting, despite the fact that every single page found a new way to break my heart.
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Reading Progress
Started Reading
March 1, 2008
–
Finished Reading
March 10, 2008
– Shelved
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message 1:
by
Bekah
(new)
Nov 09, 2011 12:39PM
i feel so much for this poor little girl!! (even though i havent read it!) it's sad but reality. man, really brings things into perspective.
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De buying n selling of humans like a commodity is a lingering stain on the conscience of humanity. Discuss de possible causes of human trafficking n solutions to this human scouring
OMG LOVE THIS BOOK ITS AMAZING GIRLS <3
like you, i also thought the novel felt intensely real -- what is truly sad is that this continues to happen -- right now, as i write this, a young girl is being duped-- why aren't more people reading books like this instead of 50 shades? --
This book opened my eyes and broke my heart. I "knew" this type of trafficking occurs, but to read it from this little girl's innocent and intelligent perspective was profound. I hope this book becomes more widely read by fathers, and men, in general. I believe it would stir something important from this audience, in particular.
Amen to that. The pen is mightier than the sword, after all.And mighty words might be able to wield much needed change.
That particular quote shattered my heart to pieces
This book brings the real story, the girls' story who lived her life to fulfil the needs of her mother,brother, and for stepfather. Very innocent will make family life better at her earlier age as Himalayan girl who had sold by one of her villagers auntie.
