In the spirit of Khaled Hosseini, Nadia Hashimi and Shilpi Somaya Gowda comes this powerful debut from a talented new voice—a sweeping, emotional journey of two childhood friends in Mumbai, India, whose lives converge only to change forever one fateful night.India, 1986: Mukta, a ten-year-old village girl from the lower caste Yellama cult has come of age and must fulfill her destiny of becoming a … becoming a temple prostitute, as her mother and grandmother did before her. In an attempt to escape her fate, Mukta is sent to be a house girl for an upper-middle class family in Mumbai. There she discovers a friend in the daughter of the family, high spirited eight-year-old Tara, who helps her recover from the wounds of her past. Tara introduces Mukta to an entirely different world—one of ice cream, reading, and a friendship that soon becomes a sisterhood.
But one night in 1993, Mukta is kidnapped from Tara’s family home and disappears. Shortly thereafter, Tara and her father move to America. A new life in Los Angeles awaits them but Tara never recovers from the loss of her best friend, or stops wondering if she was somehow responsible for Mukta’s abduction.
Eleven years later, Tara, now an adult, returns to India determined to find Mukta. As her search takes her into the brutal underground world of human trafficking, Tara begins to uncover long-buried secrets in her own family that might explain what happened to Mukta—and why she came to live with Tara’s family in the first place.
Moving from a traditional Indian village to the bustling modern metropolis of Mumbai, to Los Angeles and back again, this is a heartbreaking and beautiful portrait of an unlikely friendship—a story of love, betrayal, and, ultimately, redemption.
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I found this book slow at the beginning and not as well written as I would have liked, but it is a compelling story and after a while, I could not put it down!
Boring to many side track detail .
Tragic story with redemption!
I really enjoyed this book. The two main characters tell their stories separately yet they are interwoven. Good character background stories.
Loved the relationship between the two girls. Learning about the abduction and kidnapping of these poor girls was heartbreaking
haunting how horrible child prostitution is and the restrictions of class you are born into. we take so much for granted in America and are blessed
very informative about India
This is the story of two little girls from different castes in India. Although their lives take radically different paths, their love for each other never dies. This is a thoughtful book about sexual exploitation of girls, but it is also a book about lasting friendship.
A book that makes one really understand what happens to women who have no control of their lives. Being considered a commodity for men in poor countries also rings true to women around the world no matter their financial situation. This book is about India, girls who become women and the lives they lead. Interesting read.
Difficult subject, well handled, a horrifying tale of the traditional sex trade in India.
This is one of those books that is full of raw emotion and makes you see the world differently. The author takes pitty on us, the readers, and leaves us with a bitter-sweet ending.
A beautiful story; very straight forward to read and held my attention. Not a lot of sophistication in the writing or story, but it was it did prompt thought about a culture’s identity, how it develops and can impact those lives (or others) who live within it. I do recommend!
Well written and it kept my interest.
Excellent read.
This was a beautiful book about a difficult subject. I have a love for India that I’ve never been able to quite explain and this story touched me. It also broke my heart. I wish I could scoop all of the women and children up and save them.
Beautiful writing about the tragic topic of sex-trafficking in a culture I know little about. Taught me many things, and made me aware of how small my suffering is in the face of such great injustices others face as a matter of course in their own lives.
I couldn’t put it down.
Excellent. You learn a lot about the caste system.
In this novel the heroine searches frantically for a sister kudnapped into Inndia’s skin-trade. in doing so, she must face down her own she internal struggles, unveiling her own secrets and righting wrongful childhood impressions and memories. As she searches she changes; yet, her leads fall through one after another. This book reveals the story nderbly of Indian sex slavery. An informative and negatively informative fiction book.
Well written
Enjoyed the book the scene setting was quite immersive