Sophia C. reviewed on 10/31/2009 + 289 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 4

Lakshmi the 13 year old narrator is fictional, but she is heartbreakingly the composite of thousands of Nepali girls sold by their families and trafficked into the brothels of India. Sold is told in short chapters--most not even a page long, some reading like verse--which eloquently captures the voice of a girl not used to having much free time, having her voice heard, or too sad to say much at once. Nonetheless, an voice of innocence dimmed but a spirit not extinguished shines through. We first meet Lakshmi living with her family on the slopes of the Himalayas, eking out a precarious existence but full of simple pleasures and maternal love. However, a monsoon and her disabled stepfather's gambling habit conspire to send Lakshmi away to the city for a "maid's" job with a stranger for 800 rupees. Taking in the new sights and sounds with wonder en route to India, Lakshmi is brutally introduced to her real position as an underage prostitute by the calculating brothel owner Mumtaz, to whom the debts of sexual indentured servitude will never be worked off. Nonetheless, she retains her love of learning and make friends--including fellow sex workers with similarly heartbreaking stories--who might enable her to escape this hopeless existence. Given the subject matter, it's a bit surprising Sold is a young adult book, but the violence and sex at the brothel are not graphically portrayed. The story ends abruptly, but one can only hope that means Lakshmi and the girls on whom she is based are no longer living as commodities sold and used. It's a story very deserving of being a finalist for the National Book Award in 2007.

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