Sold, Patricia McCormick
Sold, Patricia McCormick
9 Rating(s)
List: $11.99 | Sale: $8.40
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Sold

Author: Patricia McCormick

Narrator: Justine Eyre

Unabridged: 3 hr 42 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 11/26/2012


Synopsis

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, this powerful novel renders a world that is as unimaginable as it is real, and a girl who not only survives but triumphs.

About Patricia McCormick

A former journalist, Patricia McCormick is the bestselling author of the critically acclaimed novels Never Fall Down, Purple Heart, My Brother's Keeper, and Cut, an ALA Best Book for Teenagers. Her novel, Sold, a National Book Award finalist, was named one of the Best 100 Books of the Year by Publishers Weekly, and the American Library Association selected it as one of the Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults in 2006. Patricia was named a New York Foundation on the Arts fellow in 2004. A graduate of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, Patricia lives in Manhattan.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Regan on June 09, 2023

Devastating.......more

Goodreads review by Ms.Whitehead on March 10, 2008

AM I PRETTY? In the days after the hugging man leaves, I consider myself in the mirror. My plain self, not the self wearing lipstick and eyeliner and a flimsy dress. Sometimes I see a girl who is growing into womanhood. Other days I see a girl growing old before her time. It doesn't matter, of course.......more

Goodreads review by karen on May 28, 2017

another book i'm not sure gains a lot by being written in verse, unless it is just to slow the pacing down to better appreciate the horror. the beginning pre-sale parts were very beautifully descriptive, and then after that become very unbeautifully descriptive. it's a rough subject matter that does......more

Goodreads review by Vessey on January 23, 2019

TRIGGER WARNING: It is best for people particularly sensitive toward the subject of sexual abuse/child molestation to avoid reading any further. Caution is advised. And so, Love, you launch in vain your insane onslaught: since it will be said - to see me fall yet not surrender - that you managed to......more

Goodreads review by Katie on June 12, 2018

Lakshmi is a thirteen year old girl who lives with her family in Nepal. She wants to help her family out financially by working as a maid in the city but she is sold into a life of prostitution by her stepfather. This is a fictional story but is based on interviews the author conducted with aid work......more