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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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Publisher Description
The powerful, poignant, bestselling National Book Award finalist gives voice to a young girl robbed of her childhood yet determined to find the strength to triumph.
Lakshmi is a thirteen-year-old girl who lives with her family in a small hut on a mountain in Nepal. Though she is desperately poor, her life is full of simple pleasures, like playing hopscotch with her best friend from school, 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 in the city. Glad to be able to help, Lakshmi journeys 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 by the co-author of I Am Malala (Young Readers Edition), this powerful novel renders a world that is as unimaginable as it is real, and a girl who not only survives but triumphs.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This hard-hitting novel told in spare free verse poems exposes the plight of a 13-year-old Nepali girl sold into sexual slavery. Through Lakshmi's innocent first-person narrative, McCormick (Cut) reveals her gradual awakening to the harshness of the world around her. Even in their poverty-stricken rural home, Lakshmi finds pleasure in the beauty of the Himalayan mountains, the sight of Krishna, her betrothed, and the cucumbers she lovingly tends, then sells at market. After a monsoon wipes out their crops, her profligate stepfather sells Lakshmi to an "auntie" bound for the city. During her journey, the girl acquires a visual and verbal vocabulary of things she has never seen before: electric lights, a TV. Soon a hard-won sense of irony invades her narrative, too. Early on, a poem entitled "Everything I Need to Know" marks her step into womanhood (after her first menstrual cycle); later, "Everything I Need to Know Now" lists her rules as an initiated prostitute. In her village, Lakshmi had rebelliously purchased her first Coca-Cola for her mother, after her stepfather sold her; later, in Calcutta, she overhears two johns talking and realizes, "the price of a bottle of Coca-Cola at Bajai Sita's store./ That is what he paid for me." The author beautifully balances the harshness of brothel life with the poignant relationships among its residents; especially well-drawn characters include the son of one of the prostitutes, who teaches Lakshmi to read and speak some English and Hindi, and clever Monica, who earns her freedom but gets sent back by her shamed family. Readers will admire Lakshmi's grit and intelligence, and be grateful for a ray of hope for this memorable heroine at book's end. Ages 12-up.
Customer Reviews
My honest opinion.
I don’t even know where to start. This novel is the first and only piece of literature that has me sobbing at the end. From a 13 year old girl named Lakshmi enjoying the simple wonders in her life, being able to describe things around her as full of innocence and purity, even if it is something so simply as a grain of dirt, to transitioning into a more graphic description of her dreadful experience in sexual slavery takes you on a heartbreaking journey the more you read the novel and make interpretations as the reader. The author does such a spectacular job of describing every action and piece of setting in the book in addition to capturing the raw emotion of each part, making it feel as if you yourself was experiencing this in first person. This novel as a whole is a weird yet breathtaking mix of beauty and sadness, now I know the meaning of a rollercoaster of emotions. Not to mention, the very last thing Lakshmi says at the end of the book is just honest to god so heartbreaking and even as I write this I tear up thinking about it every time. I read this novel as a homework assignment and thought it was gonna be another obnoxious book teachers always assign students as work, but wow, I never predicted for me to be so invested in this novel. I will definitely read the other pieces of work that have been put out by Patricia McCormick in my free time. Finishing off my obnoxiously long review, I wish I had better words to describe this novel because it is honestly such an amazing work of literature. (This is entirely based off of my very personal thoughts and opinions, please don’t be disappointed if you did not feel as enlightened as I have lol.)