-
Access Our
Most Anticipated
Books of 2025!
Summary | Excerpt | Reading Guide | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
Book Reviewed by:Although Lakshmi's family is desperately poor her life still contains simple pleasures; but, when the harsh Himalayan monsoons wash away all the family’s crops, Lakshmi’s stepfather sends her away to take a job to support her family. When she arrives at “Happiness House”, full of hope, she learns the unthinkable truth: she has been sold into prostitution. An exceptional novel suitable for teens and adults.
Lakshmi is a thirteen-year-old girl who lives with her family in a small hut in the mountains of Nepal. Her family is desperately poor, but her life is full of simple pleasures, like raising her black-and-white speckled goat, 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 working for a wealthy woman in the city. Glad to be able to help, Lakshmi undertakes the long journey 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.
To research Sold, Patricia McCormick traveled to India and Nepal where she interviewed the women of Calcutta’s red-light district and girls who have been rescued from the sex trade. She is the author of the acclaimed novels Cut and My Brother’s Keeper.
Sold is a devastating little book written in free verse. Although written for teenage readers, it is one of those books that can and should cross-over into the adult market. I cannot recommend it highly enough...continued
Full Review
(730 words)
This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access,
become a member today.
(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Each year about 12,000 Nepali
girls are sold by their
families, intentionally or
unwittingly, into a life of
sexual slavery in the brothels
of India.
Worldwide, the US State
Department estimates that nearly
half a million children are
trafficked into the sex trade
annually.
Lakshmi was sold by her
stepfather to the intermediary
for 800 Nepalese Rupees - less
than $11.
McCormick suggests ways
teenagers (and adults) can help:
Educate yourself by visiting
...
This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time. Join today for full access.
If you liked Sold, try these:
by Laurie Halse Anderson
Published 2020
A searing poetic memoir and call to action from the bestselling and award-winning author of Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson!
by Shobha Rao
Published 2019
A searing, electrifying debut novel set in India and America, for readers of Rupi Kaur, about the extraordinary bond between two girls driven apart by circumstances but relentless in their search for one another.
