Book Review: Sold

"Sold" is not a biographical work, but it does tell a true story. The author, Patricia McCormick, researched the lives of young women who were sold into the sex trade and put their accounts together to tell the story from the perspective of Lakshmi, a 13 year old Nepali girl. Her childhood was marked by hardship and poverty, and she believed she was going to "the city" to work as a maid. Considering that the author is a Western woman, she did a masterful job of describing this girl's background. She puts you in Lakshmi's place, seeing with her eyes and through her limited life experience. I don't want to say too much about the story itself (no spoilers here), but I will say that it pulled me in and kept me reading. There were sequential vignettes told in the first person, rather than traditional chapters. They read very much like poetry, but not distractingly so. It works. Although the story is grim and painful, as you would expect, it is not overly graphic. Much more could have been said about the horrors adolescent "sex workers" face, but the author doesn't indulge any such voyeuristic tendencies. If you read this book and are moved to do something to help girls escaping from a living hell, I'd like to suggest Rapha House. It is a Christian ministry and home for girls rescued from slavery in Asia, one that seeks to rehabilitate them and help them learn basic skills to support themselves into a brighter future.