imagine_stars's Full Review: Patricia McCormick - Sold
Lakshmi is thirteen. She lives in a small village in Nepal with her mother, stepfather, and lamb. It is a cruel and beautiful place, where the sun scorches the cucumbers in the garden, the women do not look the men in the eye, and no one says anything about stepfather gambling away his money. For the women are lucky to have a man at all, Ama says, and it is better to have a bad one than to be alone.
It is a beautiful place where Lakshmi enjoys the simplicity of life, the joy found in a game of hopscotch, the dream of one day having a tin roof. It is a cruel place, where women drink tree juice to rid their wombs of babies, babies who would inevitably die during the dry, dusty season. Where monsoons destroy the crops on the mountainside. Where Lakshmi's stepfather sells her to a strange woman who promises employment far away, in the city.
It is only when Lakshmi arrives in India, unable to speak the language, that she realizes her wages will never be enough to pay off her ever-increasing debt and get her home. Instead, her innocence is torn away from her like her old clothes, and she becomes the painted virgin that men will pay so much money for. Slowly, she learns to count the seconds, to focus on something else besides the men in her bed, to tally her money and dream of the day she'll return to Ama in Nepal. Lakshmi could become like so many young girls who suffer these circumstances every day, trapped in an emotional prison, slowly broken down. But will she remain shattered, or will her scars mend and allow her to fly away like a butterfly--injured, but not destroyed?
Sold is, perhaps, one of the most striking, lovely, and important novels I have read in a long time. Reports confirm that there is more slavery in today's world than there was even during the days of the Civil War. Most of this comes in the form of sex trafficking, which is becoming more common especially in Asia. Young girls are sold to brothels, then forced to sell their bodies (an estimated half a million children are sold into prostitution each year). Author Patricia McCormick actually traveled to Calcutta's red-light district to speak with aid workers and survivors, pulling from their experiences--and their dignity--to create Lakshmi's story.
And what a story it is! First of all, there's the writing. Sold reads like one long freeform poem, fluid and beautiful and simple. Written from Lakshmi's point of view, the words showcase the innocent-yet-poignant landscape of her mind, going from a naive adolescent to a broken (but strong) young woman. Each phrase is carefully chosen, and each chapter (if you want to call it that) is only a page or two, making it a quick and addicting read. I love how McCormick seems to handpick her words, using exactly as many as she needs, no extra: I have been beaten here, locked away, violated a hundred times and a hundred times more. I have been starved and cheated, tricked and disgraced. How odd it is that I am undone by the simple kindness of a small boy with a yellow pencil.
Then there is the plot. Oh my goodness, if you have any shred of tenderness, be assured that you'll probably cry at least once, or gasp, or well up with hot anger. Lakshmi is basically abandoned, turned over to greedy women, and forced to sleep with many different men. All the while, her mental anguish grows as she realizes that she'll never return to her old self--even if she does return to Nepal. There is a strength that rises up in Lakshmi, and I think this puts her on equal par with all the other strong, spunky heroines we know--especially because she represents thousands of real girls who are suffering as sex slaves right now. This certainly isn't a feel-good, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps kind of story. It is a story about having hope despite not having a future--and about the importance of love, of belonging, and of justice.
There are books like this that make me wary. They dump out a million overwhelming statistics, then grab at your sympathies. One big, emotional commercial. There can be truth in such a presentation. There usually is. But I hate when something stirs up a lot of momentary hype, gathers a little support (or money), then leaves us feeling good about our involvement without actually requiring us to move.
This is not that kind of book. Yes, it is moving, and yes, it absolutely hit me, urged me to learn more about sex trafficking and what I can do about it. But that didn't happen as a result of pulling all my emotional strings. It is not a poor-me-I-need-your-pity plea. In the portrait of Lakshmi's life, truth is shown in a soft voice, almost understating the awful events. The most devastating detail for me was when Lakshmi met a young boy wearing a David Beckham shirt. "David Beckam, it seems, is some sort of god," she writes, and that totally took my breath away. Maybe Lakshmi is fictional, but she is grounded in my world. Sometimes while reading, I would slip into the far-away mindset, where her life became more of a fantasy to me, but then this kid shows up in a Beckham jersey, and I realized that someone my age could be writing this story right now.
You can find this book in the teen section of Barnes and Noble. Does that mean teens should be reading it? Like I mentioned before, I think this is an important work. Those who live within the safety of the law would do well to read it and understand that not everyone enjoys such privileges. It's also important because it is a realistic but hopeful view of pain, and because it helps us find common ground and care about someone we may never meet in real life. Or maybe it will inspire us to meet them, and hear their stories, and understand how our stories intertwine. That said, it is a hard read. There's sex, there's abuse, there's abandonment. It is poetically raw. McCormick never gets unnecessarily graphic, but she is creatively descriptive (for example, at one point, Lakshmi describes a sexual encounter as "something hot and insistent between my thighs"). I don't think we should be ignorant of the truth, but there is an appropriate time to talk with kids about this--so use your best judgment. Personally, I think high school age (about 15 and up) would be the youngest I'd recommend this for. And I wouldn't stop there. Adults need to read this one, too!
Sold is stirring without ever turning preachy. It melts a thousand horrifying facts into 263 beautiful pages. It will be lingering in my mind for a long, long time, and hopefully you will allow it to linger in and stirs yours.
(If you'd like to learn more about sex trafficking and modern-day slavery, check out the following websites. The International Justice Mission is an agency that, in part, helps girls like Lakshmi by taking girls out of prostitution and teaching them how to be self-supportive: www.ijm.org.
The Not for Sale website has a lot of information about slavery in all parts of the world: www.notforsalecampaign.org.)
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 ...More at HotBookSale
Sold into prostitution, Lakshmi lives a nightmare and gradually forms friendships with the other girls that enable her to survive in this terrifying n...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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