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zhelana's review against another edition
5.0
This book was advertised for fans of Nadia Hashimi, and boy did they nail it. It was very similar to Hashimi's writing, which is a very good thing. It was, like Hashimi, about how poorly women are treated in certain conditions. This condition was a brothel for a young girl who was born to a temple prostitute. In India, that birth guaranteed that she would spend most of her life also as a prostitute. This book is also about the love between two girls - one upper caste and one lower caste - and how that love evolved from 5 year old children to adulthood. I loved Mukta's voice, and how she managed to maintain hope and see good in small things in such awful situations.
msethna's review
5.0
Wow! Just wow. This book is a powerful read about a bond between two girls who come from two different backgrounds.
rootyjoh's review
3.0
For such an interesting story, I found it a little hard to get into at the beginning. Overall, very well written and good book.
lisasroughdrafts's review
4.0
One of the best books I have ever read. This book examines themes like: love, guilt, shame, and redemption.
lindsaywolfson's review
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
felinity's review against another edition
5.0
Born into very different worlds, Mukta's mother is a temple prostitute who hopes for more for her daughter. Tara's father is higher caste, yet rejects the more traditional views, choosing instead to help bring children out of poverty or slavery.
A strange kinship develops between the two girls while Mukta holds out hope that one day her sky will be bright again, but the tentative happiness does not last. Mukta is kidnapped, and sold to a brothel. Through other girls she quickly learns her fate, and how easy it was for them to be trapped. The growing horror, the resignation, the tentative hope and the fear of reprisal.
The all-too-real problems of the sex trade, along with its child abuse, abortions, disease, poverty, and the conflict of traditional custom with modern life, are handled delicately but without shying away, making the impact even greater.
Ultimately, hope is the best gift offered, and offering a way out shines light into a terribly dark situation.
Although set in India, it could just as well have been set in the U.S. Human trafficking - sex trafficking - is both the oldest and newest iteration of the slave trade, and you shouldn't make the mistake of thinking, "It doesn't happen here". It does. Child prostitution, drugs, gangs... it's relevant to everyone. The ultimate tragedy, to my mind, is the acceptance of all this, the people who deliberately turn a blind eye for profit, or who just don't care, leaving a broken system which fails the most vulnerable and leaves them open to systemic, ongoing, generational abuse.
If you want to know more, or want to help girls like Mukta, visit amitatrasi.com.
Disclaimer: I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
A strange kinship develops between the two girls while Mukta holds out hope that one day her sky will be bright again, but the tentative happiness does not last. Mukta is kidnapped, and sold to a brothel. Through other girls she quickly learns her fate, and how easy it was for them to be trapped. The growing horror, the resignation, the tentative hope and the fear of reprisal.
The all-too-real problems of the sex trade, along with its child abuse, abortions, disease, poverty, and the conflict of traditional custom with modern life, are handled delicately but without shying away, making the impact even greater.
Ultimately, hope is the best gift offered, and offering a way out shines light into a terribly dark situation.
Although set in India, it could just as well have been set in the U.S. Human trafficking - sex trafficking - is both the oldest and newest iteration of the slave trade, and you shouldn't make the mistake of thinking, "It doesn't happen here". It does. Child prostitution, drugs, gangs... it's relevant to everyone. The ultimate tragedy, to my mind, is the acceptance of all this, the people who deliberately turn a blind eye for profit, or who just don't care, leaving a broken system which fails the most vulnerable and leaves them open to systemic, ongoing, generational abuse.
If you want to know more, or want to help girls like Mukta, visit amitatrasi.com.
Disclaimer: I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
alexblackreads's review
2.0
I was so disappointed by this book because I really wanted to love it. Like the bones were there. The story itself and the overall plot was fascinating. I enjoyed hearing about Mukta and Tara's lives and I really wanted to love them.
Most of this book is told from the perspective of the two characters looking back on their lives. They already have a distance of the events being discussed and because of this, as a reader I did too. Nothing felt like it was being experienced in the moment so none of the emotion hit me as hard as I wanted it to. The characters were sad a lot, but it felt more like they were talking about being sad rather than actually feeling sad. I wanted to feel sad with them.
The pacing in this book threw me off a lot. Tara goes back to India to search for Mukta and it alternates between the past when they were children and the present day. At one point Tara was talking to her friend and mentioned that she'd been in India for three months. I was gobsmacked. Like I literally thought it had been a few days and here she was talking about months. I've never been so confused about a timeline before.
It felt like there wasn't enough time or depth spent on some truly traumatic moments. Mukta is raped as a young child, and after the fact it's never really brought up again. Her mother is murdered in front of her and it barely feels like a scene in a book. So many things felt glossed over when I wanted them to be explored. When Mukta has HIV, they barely even say that. It's whispered about in vague terms in the narration. That happened with so many events that sometimes I found myself a little confused to what had actually happened.
I almost gave this book three stars just because I did so enjoy the overall story, but I feel it was really let down by the writing style. I was so bitterly disappointed because the whole time reading I tried really hard to love this, but I just couldn't.
Most of this book is told from the perspective of the two characters looking back on their lives. They already have a distance of the events being discussed and because of this, as a reader I did too. Nothing felt like it was being experienced in the moment so none of the emotion hit me as hard as I wanted it to. The characters were sad a lot, but it felt more like they were talking about being sad rather than actually feeling sad. I wanted to feel sad with them.
The pacing in this book threw me off a lot. Tara goes back to India to search for Mukta and it alternates between the past when they were children and the present day. At one point Tara was talking to her friend and mentioned that she'd been in India for three months. I was gobsmacked. Like I literally thought it had been a few days and here she was talking about months. I've never been so confused about a timeline before.
It felt like there wasn't enough time or depth spent on some truly traumatic moments. Mukta is raped as a young child, and after the fact it's never really brought up again. Her mother is murdered in front of her and it barely feels like a scene in a book. So many things felt glossed over when I wanted them to be explored. When Mukta has HIV, they barely even say that. It's whispered about in vague terms in the narration. That happened with so many events that sometimes I found myself a little confused to what had actually happened.
I almost gave this book three stars just because I did so enjoy the overall story, but I feel it was really let down by the writing style. I was so bitterly disappointed because the whole time reading I tried really hard to love this, but I just couldn't.