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Book Review: SOLD by Patricia McCormick
Posted in: Blog by Bloom on June 29, 2010
This book review was written by Bloom supporter Sue Hamlet, who was moved by this account of child sex trafficking. Whilst the story takes place in Nepal, it is very true to life for Bloom students, many of whom were also sold at a very young age.
Sue writes:
If you are willing to invest an hour or so gaining a personal perspective on what it is to be a child victim of sex trafficking, then I would suggest “SOLD” by Patricia McCormick which I have just finished. It is a ‘first hand’ account of a young Nepalese girl sold into a brothel. It is a work of fiction, but based on a composite of real stories.
Beautifully written, this novella successfully treads the line between mercifully selective and brutally graphic; it would suit readership from mid-teens onwards.
At the end of the book, one can’t fail to be moved to action – it personalizes the statistics. There is also a good understanding gained of how the brothel owners gain compliance from the girls, how their spirits can become broken by the experience itself, and how the lies they are told can actually prevent them from being rescued.
This book does have a ‘hopeful’ outcome but the reader is left in no doubt of the immensity and scale of the tragedy of this industry.
Patricial McCormick, the author, said of the book in a previous interview:
I spent a month in India and Nepal tracing Lakshmi’s steps… and interviewed women in the red-light district, girls who had been rescued.
I felt inadequate to the task of doing justice to the stories the women had entrusted to me. But when I thought about the young girls… I felt urgency- urgency that their experiences be known and understood by the outside world. And I began to write.
Educate yourself then work to raise awareness among your friends and family members, your church or school. Invite a speaker, and raise or donate money. The cost of living in countries where trafficking takes place is very low; [your donation] could go a long way toward providing medicine, toys or books for the children of the red-light district, or could contribute to the work of organizations that stop trafficking and provide safety for victims.
As Eli Weisel said, “Let us remember: what hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander.”
Sold is available from the Book Depository (free shipping worldwide) for $9.27, or from any good book retailer.
