Reading Response 3

I have recently started reading a book called "Sold" by Patricia McCormick. I kind of ruined the whole novel for myself though because a few months ago I opened it at a random page and it got so interesting I kept reading...from the middle of the book...until I finished it. I saw the book perched up on the shelf in the classroom library, and although I knew the ending, I figured there was no point reading a book if only half of it was read. Anyways, I started reading (from the beggining this time) and it evidently made the conclusion much more satisfying because all my questions that surfaced while I was reading the ending were answered in the beggining! So a quick resume of the book would consist of a thirteen year old girl named Lakshmi living in a third world country, living in poverty with a loving and nurturing mother, a happy baby brother and a gambling and selfish step father. Attempting at making ends meat, Lakshmi and her mother rely on their rice crops for a semi-stable income. When harsh Himilayan monsoons wash away all their crops and hopes of being financially safe, Lakshmi`s step father is persistant trading her off to become a maid in the city, and recieving an allowance in return. Lakshmi is happy she can assist her mother with paying rent for their small hut and having enough milk and food for the whole family, even if involves not seeing her family until the next year. Her step father brings her to a dazzled stranger whom will take her to the city to find a job. The stranger is an unpleasant woman, dressed beautifuly. Lakshmi beleieves she will be working as a maid, but shortly after finds out she has been traded into being a child prostitute. Sharing a house with numerous other sex slaves, she feels she has no escape. The days are long and there are very few moments of happiness. If she leaves and tries to escape and is caught the cruel woman who took her will shave her head and punish her immensly. She is afraid of the concequences, as a majority of children would be, and decides she has no way out. She is reminded constantly that she must portray the ideal prostitute to gain the most amount of money possible because she owes a debt to the stranger who took her and payed her father. The whole time reading this I thought to myself why would she sacrifice her happiness and maybe even her sanity when, if planned out correctly, she had the slightest opportunity to escape. I suppose if I was in that situation and the only safe place I knew was in that home, being forced to sleep with strange men on a daily basis, perhaps I wouldn't have the strength to leave either. But being on the outside looking in, it seems that leaving would be the only logical thing to do. She has many hopeful opportunities to escape when certain white men from America enter the house and secrety announce to her that they can take her out of there and save her, but she hesitates. It aggrivates me when she does not  accept this offer because even if these men are lying and are not planning on helping her as promised, it's a risk I feel she should take! What would be worse than being a sex slave at the age of thirteen?

This book is one of those books you can finish in a day because every spare second you have you're reading it. It's very interesting and although it's slightly irritating reading about so much pain and suffering, it's suspenseful at the same time.