Sold

When I heard we were reading Sold I was pretty ecstatic since Patricia McCormick wrote Cut, which was one of my favorite books in high school. I knew she would write an unbelievably believable account of something she has never experienced personally and it rings true with Sold. The details of Lakshmi's hometown os spot on with what I read about on Nepal. Lakshmi's house is made from cow dung and mud. They are mostly agricultural people and the majority practice Hinduism which is what Lakshmi and her mother practice (especially since she is named after the Hindu God). What I read on the cuisine was pretty accurate to the book as well, since they ate a lot of rice and lentils which are common there. When the step father came into the novel I could tell he would be the one who would sell Lakshmi into the sex slave trade, especially when he made the comment about girls being like goats you don't miss them when it comes time to make stew. This book is probably the saddest I have ever read besides Kite Runner. The chapter called the calendar was extremely sad, the this is when they bury their children chapter. When Lakshmi got sold, her travel was exactly how I read it usually happens. She was sold by someone close to her and transferred amount people in the town then taken across the border into India by fake papers she never sees by someone who tells her to claim he is her husband. She ends up in India or what sounds like India, a country that she doesn't know the language of, lessing her chances of escape. At the end when she says in English who she is it is such a liberating act for her, that her boldness and her learning despite extreme opposition set her free. I wish Patricia would have put in whether she ever got to see her mother again though or her going back to visit her hometown would be. Would she be received as Monica was received in her hometown or would she be happily welocome back. Somehow I think her mother never knew she was being sold into the sex slave trade because she taught her how to be a good maid, not prostitute. I also found it interesting that the Americans that came in could speak her specific dialect, which seems like it would be pretty rare, but if that was their job and they knew that most girls come from her rural place in Nepal, it isn't that much of a stretch. It also broke my heart that Anita closed and locked the door ensuring she would never be rescued, I am sure her fate would be to eventually get sick and be out on that streets to starve. I am also hypothesizing from what I read that the virus Monica gets is HIV which can't be cured so Mumtaz throws her on the streets as well. It is destined to happen to all the girls unless they escape when they have to be with so many random men every night  until they are too sick to be of use. So incredibly sad, especially since you know that almost exactly everything in this book really happens to these poor young girls.