Thursday, July 22, 2010

Sold

My Rating: 5/5
Pages: 272; Speed: Very Fast
Subject: Teen Fiction, Choices & Transitions

I have had this book on my shelf for years but never guessed it would take only hours to rush through! This succincly written non-fiction is of a thirteen-year-old girl from Napal who lives the simple life with her family. When their meager lot sinks deaper, they decide she must work in the city as a maid for a rich family to help carry her weight. After traveling hundreds of miles, she arrives at "Happiness House" where she learned the unfathomable truth that she has been, unknowingly by her family, sold into prostitution. Trying to survive the torture of existence, she learned of the stories of the other girls; some even choose to stay there-for fear of the "bad Americans-" all lies to keep them from rescue or running away. It's devastating to walk these days with her (written in diary form) as she tries to follow her mother's motto: "Simpy to endure is triumph." I highly recommend this well written text, whose chapers are sometimes but half a page. Cry, see the realities of what exists in the world, and feel what it would be like to be Sold.

Available here.

(in the teen section, but a bit heavy subject matter; handled with discrepancy in most places)