Week 4

I started reading Sold by Patricia McCormick earlier this week and I am now finished with it in less than a week. Sold is about a 13 year old girl from the Napal mountain countryside. Her family is very poor, so when her step-father says she needs to go into the city to become a maid for a rich family to earn money, she decides to do it. Her step-father has to sell her because he keeps gambling away the family's money so they continue to stay poor. The 13 year old girl, Lakshmi, is sold and a woman who makes her call her "auntie" takes her and brings her into the city. After she took her a certain distance, another man, who wants to be called "Uncle Husband" takes her even father away to another city. Once she is at the place where Lakshmi believes she is going to be a maid, an older fat woman, Mumtaz pays money for her. She believes Mumtaz is the head of the house, but she is wrong. Lakshmi is locked into a room and Mumtaz has a "customer" come into her room. Lakshmi fights him off and finally realized that she is not at a house to work; she is at a brothel in India. She is raped several times, but she stays hopefuk that she will pay off her debt to Mumtaz soon. But the trick is that Mumtaz made it so Lakshmi will never pay off her debt. Finally, after over a year, an American man comes in and says he will help her leave. He leaves and Lakshmi gives up hope he will ever come back until a week later when he shows up with police. The American man comes back and takes her to a safe place for help and treatment.

At first, I didn't think I'd like this story because it was so short and unlike many other books I read. After I finally got into the book, part of me didn't want to read it because I didn't want to hear about the horrible things that those girls actually go through. The book was told through Lakshmi's view and she told about the punishments that happened to other girls. This particular story, persons, and settings isn't EXACTLY true, but it is based on things that really do happen in India when girls are sold into prostitution.