Sold by Patricia McCormick

I want to tell you that you must read this book. I want to tell you that it will change the way you feel about sharing your room or having to eat leftovers again tonight. I want to tell you that reading this book will change the way you think about your everyday life. All of that is true, but reading this book will also show you things that are so painful that most of the world likes to pretend that they don't exist. Sold is the story of thirteen-year-old Lakshmi who is sold into prostitution by her step father. She has been living a subsistence life with her mother and younger sister in a hovel in Nepal. When she is sold to an "Auntie" she thinks she will be working in the city as a maid and this will allow her to send money home to her mother. Instead she is sold to a brothel in India with bars on the windows. She is broken and left without hope as her body and mind are abused night after night. She snatches brief moments of peace through friendships with the other women in the brothel, but these friendships themselves are dangerous because it leaves her with something more to lose. The story is written in prose poetry. The shortest chapter can tell of indescribable pain in short blunt sentences that leave you feeling breathless and afraid to turn the page. The author based the experiences in this book on interviews with some of the thousands of girls and women sold into the sex trade in India.