What an astonishing audiobook! A Nepalese girl of 13 sold by her step-father to be a maid in a big city in India, then trapped in a brothel. The numbers are numbing: half a million worldwide sold into sex trafficking. But telling the fictional story of one girl makes it more real.

My mind often wanders with audiobooks, but not this one. I was riveted and heard every word.

I was disappointed at first that the author is a white American. But the story was so good that I no longer cared. She also wrote I Am Malala, a book I've always meant to read. The narrator's Indian accent (or Nepalese?) added to the flavor of the story. It turned out the narrator is a Filipina actress who is an expert on accents. She sure convinced my untrained ear.

Highly recommended! ( )

stunning and beautiful in its ugly truth. Much easier to read than Half the Sky because it told the haunting story without statistical full-world view.

I love that it painted the picture without getting graphic (it's a YA book, I don't think that we need all the details). It gives you the rough outline of the life and you can imagine/know the details it doesn't give you. I don't think my 12 year old is ready for this, but she will be soon, and then we will read it together and talk about it. ( )

It chronicles man inhumanity to man. ( )

Important, yet it still read a bit like "look at all the awful things" instead of a complete story. I wanted it to be a bit more fictional, I suppose; her friendship with the one boy was the only thing that got me super invested. ( )

CW: Child sex trafficking ( )