Review (Randi): Sold

Title: Sold

Author: Patricia McCormick
Publisher: Hyperion
Publication Date: September 1st, 2006
Page Count: 263
Genre: contemporary fiction/verse novel/issues book (prostitution/abuse)
Audience: young adult
Source: bought
Rating: 5 I would give this book a safe haven for life

Goodreads Summary: 
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.

My thoughts: I haven’t read many verse novels, but I think the technique really lends itself to gritty, emotional stories like Sold. While I like the story and it is beautifully written, I can’t exactly say I enjoyed it, especially realizing that girls like Lakshmi are suffering these horrors right now around the world. However, that awareness strikes a chord and makes me want to take action, to speak out as Patricia McCormick has with this book.

Lakshmi’s emotions come through the brief lines, as do the concise descriptions of the things she notices or remembers (her homeland of Nepal, the people she watches outside in the streets, the different types of men she encounters), which is the most important part of this story; you feel for Lakshmi not only because you know what is happening to her, but because the language used to tell the story is very personal and intense. As a reader, you feel Lakshmi’s despair even though most people can’t relate to her situation: “I shut my eyes and shake my head from side to side. She is wrong. Because if she is right, everything I’ve done here, everything that’s been done to me, was for nothing” (239). The sorrow that the simple language manages to convey is a sad sort of magic.

            Clearly, based on the title and the book’s back cover, readers know what they are in for. But the language of the story caught me off-guard and surprised me at how vivid it managed to be while also consisting of quite simplistic vocabulary as well as the relatively short length and the sparse verse. It seems less is more here; without unnecessary details that come with a narrative, every word makes an important contribution to Lakshmi’s story. When Harish gifts her a pencil, the emotion Lakshmi feels at this small gesture of kindness is palpable: “Then he hands me a pencil. It is shiny yellow and it smells of lead and rubber. And possibility…A tear is running down my cheek…How odd is that I am undone by the simple kindness of a small boy with a yellow pencil” (183). Witnessing Lakshmi’s reaction to this exchange makes you realize how, even though she does her best to block out the atrocities she is victim to, her spirit has not been entirely broken. There is still a small hope that her life can be saved, against all odds.

**Note: I reread this book, this time reading it for one of my grad school courses (a class on reading and teaching YA). This is an edited version of the dialogue journal I wrote for that class, so it includes more on this book in reference to teaching than is usually part of my reviews**

FTC Disclaimer: All reviews are solely the opinions of Becky and/or Randi. We are not paid in any way for our reviews, and all opinions are 100% honest.