Sold

Labor Day weekend going well for the most part.  Lost my keys and spent hours driving in car to Allentown, PA (did get to see son Christian as he had the extra set of keys for PA House).  But, making progress on the reading front.  Have met close to ¼ of the new RAs and only 12 new books so far!  And down to 14 to go on the overall list.  Have been busy with Opening and other things that have kept me from reading as quickly as I would have hoped, nonetheless finished another one today.  Sold by Patricia McCormick is the story of a twelve year old Nepali girl being sold by her step-father in an effort to have money for her mother and baby brother.  Her mother, Ama is seemingly unaware that her daughter is being sold into prostitution.  Rather she thinks she will be serving as a maid for women in the city.  Lakshmi is transported from one “seller” to another and finally is led to the brothel where she is introduced to her new life as a prostitute.  She is forced into the work after fighting it off at first by biting the tongue of her first client.  When the “Madame” realizes what has happened, she drugs Lakshmi and that is how she loses her virginity.  The children are driven into fear at every corner and forced to believe they can never leave the house for fear of reprisals by the goons the Madame has hired.  It takes a visiting American to get Lakshmi to realize that there may be a way out.  This reality story was researched by the author through her travels in the countries and provides a tragic picture of how innocent young girls face this senseless existence.  McCormick’s narrative prose is presented through brief “poem like/short stories” with titles and short tales.  The flow of the story moved quickly and was easy to sit down and read this one in a few hours.  A story that needs to be told!  A good read, especially if we can do something that will get this horrific activity to end.  Probably has been a 60 Minute segment if not it should be.  As a book, not a top ten for sure but serves the purpose of getting sex trafficking in the main stream media.